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Ed  win  C.  La  1^1261) 


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LIBRARY 

OF  THK 

University  of  California. 

GIRT  OK 


Accession  No.  7 J2,  ^  d/        -^a^'sNo. 


EDWIN    CHANNING    LARNED 


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ClA/y-ijLjz^^ 


IN    MEMORY 


OF 


Edwin  Channing  Larned 


CHICAGO 

A.   C.   McCLURG    AND    COMPANY 

1886 


3 
^3 


7  20  6'/ 


CONTENTS. 


Pagb 

In  Memory  of  Edwin  C.  Larned 7 

Introductory  Remarks 9 

Memorial  Address  by  Daniel  Goqdwin,  Jr.    .  ii 

Address  by  Rt.  Rev.  S.  S.  Harris,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Bishop  of  Michigan 37 

Address  by  Judge  Henry  W.  Blodgett  ...  54 

Address  by  Franklin  MacVeagh,  Esq.    ...  60 

Presentation  of  Portrait 6^ 

Argument    of    E.    C.    Larned,    Esq.,    on    the 

Trial  of  Joseph  Stout •    •    •  73 


in  i^etnorp 

OP 

EDWIN    C.    LARNED. 


IV  /TR.  LARNED  died  at  his  son's  home  in 
■*-^ ^  Lake  Forest,  Illinois,  on  the  eighteenth 
day  of  September,  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred 
and  eighty-four,  in  the  sixty-fifth  year  of  his 
age.  His  death  was  sudden;  but  the  disease 
of  the  heart  which  caused  it  had  been  known 
for  a  long  time  both  to  himself  and  his  family. 
One  of  the  most  impressive  lessons  of  his  life 
could  not  be  fully  spoken  of  by  those  who  have 
written  the  pages  that  follow,  because  his 
immediate  family  alone  had  the  opportunity 
to  appreciate  it,  —  I  mean  the  perfect  serenity 
of  his  life  for  more  than  two  years,  while  he 
knew  that  death  might  come  at  any  moment. 
Though  forced  to  remain  quiet  in  body  during 
these  last  two  years,  his  mind  was  as  active  as 


8      IN    MEMORY  OF   EDWIN   C.  LARNED. 

ever,  and  his  mental  work  was  continued  almost 
to  the  very  last  day  of  his  life.  He  was  more 
cheerful  during  the  two  years  preceding  his 
death  than  was  usual  even  with  him.  Death 
had  no  terrors  for  him,  because  his  Christian 
faith  gave  him  the  victory  over  it.  He  was 
ready  at  all  times,  as  he  often  said,  either  to  go 
or  stay  as  the  Heavenly  Father  willed  it.  The 
more  public  events  of  his  hfe  are  fully  told  by 
those  who  delivered  the  following  Memorial 
Addresses. 

W.  C.  L. 


THESE  Memorial  Addresses  were  delivered  in  the 
hall  of  the  Historical  Society  in  Chicago,  on  Dear- 
born Avenue,  near  the  corner  of  Ontario  Street,  on  the 
evening  of  Tuesday,  the  sixteenth  day  of  December, 
eighteen  hundred  and  eighty-four.  The  Hon.  E.  B. 
Washburne  was  at  that  time  President  of  the  Society. 
He  presided,  and  spoke  as  follows  :  — 

The  current  business  of  the  evening  having 
been  disposed  of,  we  will  now  have  the  pleasure 
of  listening  to  memorial  addresses  in  respect  of 
our  late  distinguished  associate  and  honored 
friend,  the  Hon.  EDWIN  C.  Larned. 

Mr.  Larned  was  one  of  the  oldest  and  most 
useful  members  of  our  Society,  and  always  inter- 
ested in  all  that  appertained  to  our  progress  and 
well-being. 

I  can  assume  that  the  members  of  the  Society 
and  all  others  present  will  listen  with  interest 
and  emotion  to  what  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Larned 
here  to-night. 

Long  a  resident  of  Chicago,  by  his  honor  and 
probity,  by  his  intelligence  and  sagacity,  by  the 


lO  INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 

conspicuous  virtues  which  adorned  his  public 
and  private  character,  Mr.  Larned  had  illus- 
trated the  history  of  our  great  city,  and  left  a 
name  and  a  memory  which  will  be  cherished 
with  gratitude  by  all  who  knew  him. 

We  will  now  listen  to  Mr.  Goodwin's  address. 


MEMORIAL    ADDRESS. 


BY  DANIEL  GOODWIN,  Jr. 


Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen : 

The  members  of  this  Society  can  "readily  un- 
derstand and  appreciate  the  profound  emotion 
with  which  I  appear  before  them  to-night.  One 
year  ago,  by  the  courtesy  of  your  then  Presi- 
dent, I  here  presented  to  you  a  memorial  of 
that  old  hero.  General  Dearborn,  for  whom  this 
settlement  was  named  in  its  first  infancy.  With- 
in the  past  month,  the  last  male  descendant 
bearing  his  name  has  been  laid  beside  the  old 
General,  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Dearborn  in 
Forest  Hills  Cemetery.  I  saw  him  at  his  home 
in  Roxbury,  in  September,  in  apparent  health ; 
and  he  expressed  great  gratification  that  this 
Historical  Society  had  celebrated  the  eightieth 
anniversary  of  the  first  settlement  here  by 
placing  upon  its  walls  a  portrait  of  his  grand- 
father. 

On  the  twenty-first  day  of  November,  in  the 
seventy-sixth   year   of  his   age,   Henry   G.    R. 


12  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

Dearborn  passed  away ;  but  so  long  as  the  city 
of  Chicago  survives  the  elements,  the  name  of 
the  old  hero  of  our  two  wars  for  independence 
will  be  remembered  upon  some  beautiful  ave- 
nue, some  park,  some  noble  building,  some 
living  society. 

Nor  can  I  stand  here  and  forget  him  who 
presided  here  a  year  ago  with  such  grace  and 
dignity.  He  was  an  enthusiast  for  the  fullest 
historical  record  of  his  beloved  country,  for  which 
he  had  devoted  so  much  of  the  best  efforts  of  his 
life.  He,  too,  has  passed  from  earth ;  and  these 
walls  have  scarcely  ceased  to  echo  the  eloquent 
and  appreciative  eulogy  upon  our  dead  Presi- 
dent from  the  lips  of  his  successor,  who  strug- 
gled by  his  side  for  more  than  a  generation  in 
placing  his  country  upon  the  adamantine  corner- 
stone of  freedom  and  righteousness. 

To-night  we  have  assembled  to  do  honor  to 
the  memory  of  one  who  was  a  very  Warwick 
behind  the  throne  of  these  leaders  and  law- 
makers. So  long  as  the  history  of  Chicago  is 
read  and  admired,  many  of  the  most  striking 
and  interesting  events  in  its  career  to  the  present 
year  of  grace  will  find  the  names  of  ISAAC  N. 
Arnold  and  Edwin  C.  Larned  hnked  together 
in  fraternal  accord. 

It  seems  to  me  but  yesterday  since  I  came  to 
Chicago,  in  November,  1858,  and  entered  Mr. 
Larned's  office  in  the  old  Parker  Building  on 
Washington  Street.  The  gifted  Dr.  William 
Dennison  ;  the  much  loved  Dr.  M.  O.  Heydock ; 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


13 


the  well-born  and  well-bred  J.  Mason  Parker; 
Stephen  A.  Goodwin,  with  his  learning  and  elo- 
quence; Edward  S.  Stickney,  so  full  of  every 
kind  of  culture ;  and  Edwin  C.  Earned,  the  ora- 
tor and  the  philanthropist, — were  all  then  under 
the  same  roof;  but,  in  the  words  of  the  gentle 
Elia,  — 

"  All,  all  are  gone,  —  the  old  familiar  faces." 

But  they  have  left  us  with  memories  we  would 
not  willingly  let  die;  and  it  has  been  thought 
best  that  this  Society  should  place  upon  its 
records  some  memorial  of  the  noble  life  which 
has  so  recently  ended. 

Twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  my  partner- 
ship with  Mr.  Earned.  If  I  had  been  called 
upon  at  that  time  to  pronounce  a  eulogy  upon 
his  character  and  services,  it  might  have  been 
thought  by  some,  whose  knowledge  of  him  was 
limited,  that  the  sentiments  expressed  were  col- 
ored by  the  warm  friendship  engendered  by  daily 
courtesies  and  mutual  interests,  and  that  the  judg- 
ment was  blinded  by  the  too  near  influence  of 
his  brilliant  conversation.  But  the  years  which 
have  passed  since  then  have  brought  many  other 
brilliant  and  able  men  upon  the  stage  and  before 
the  view ;  and,  take  him  all  in  all,  I  remember 
Edwin  C.  Earned  as  the  peer  of  the  best  and 
noblest  men  our  era  has  produced.  Not  to  speak 
of  the  living,  since  my  estimate  of  Mr.  Earned  was 
formed,  I  have  listened  to  Eincoln  and  Browning, 
to  Eovejoy   and  Carpenter,  to   Arrington  and 


14  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

Fuller  in  our  own  city,  and  to  a  host  of  able 
men  from  all  parts  of  the  country ;  and  I  re- 
member now  the  war  speeches  of -Mr.  Larned, 
his  arguments  in  cases  involving  personal  rights, 
and  his  pleas  for  the  sick  and  the  wounded  and 
the  destitute,  and  the  imperilled  children,  as 
among  the  finest  and  most  effective  appeals  ever 
addressed  to  the  reason  and  the  heart. 

We  have  known  many  men  in  this  wonderful 
city  who  were  great  in  some  particular  direc- 
tions ;  Mr.  Larned  was  remarkable  for  his  even 
and  full  development  in  every  sphere  and  in 
every  department  of  intellectual  labor. 

Mr.  Larned  was  born  in  Providence,  R.  L, 
July  14,  1820,  and  died  at  Lake  Forest,  111.,  on 
the  1 8th  day  of  September,  1884. 

He  was  the  son  of  John  S.  Larned,  a  promi- 
nent and  influential  merchant  of  Providence,  and 
Lucinda  Martin,  his  wife.  His  grandfather,  Wil- 
liam Larned,  served  with  distinction  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War.  His  father  died  when  he  was 
young ;  and  his  home  training  was  by  his  mother, 
who  was  highly  educated,  and  the  author  of 
several  published  books.  He  was  educated  at 
private  schools  in  Providence,  and  graduated  at 
Brown  University  in  1840;  was  Professor  of 
Mathematics  in  Kemper  College,  Mo.,  for  one 
year,  and  then  studied  law  with  the  Hon.  Albert 
C.  Greene,  who  was  attorney  general  for  Rhode 
Island  for  seventeen  years,  and  for  a  time  United 
States  Senator.  He  first  distinguished  himself 
by   preparing   the   evidence   and   briefs  in  the 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


15 


celebrated  Lexington  case,  6  How.  U.  S.  344,  in 
which  Richard  W.  Greene  and  Daniel  Webster 
were  of  counsel,  and  so  acquitted  himself  as  to 
be  taken  into  partnership  by  Mr.  Greene,  who  was 
for  many  years  afterward  Chief  Justice  of  Rhode 
Island. 

Mr.  Larned  resolved  to  try  his  fortune  in  the 
West;  and  he  settled  in  Chicago  in  September, 
1847.  He  was  at  that  time  very  tall  and  slender, 
but  enjoyed  good  health ;  had  a  voice  of  great 
volume  and  power,  and  exceedingly  rich  and  mel- 
low in  tone ;  and  was  possessed  of  an  exuberant 
imagination  and  great  command  of  language. 

Mr.  Larned  was  by  nature  and  education  an 
enthusiastic  anti-slavery  man,  and  acquired  his 
first  celebrity  by  a  popular  speech  in  the  old 
Market  House  on  State  Street,  in  185 1,  in  an- 
swer to  one  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  on  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law,  which  was  published  in  pamphlet 
form,  and  which  Mr.  Douglas  complimented  as 
the  best  on  that  side  of  the  question. 

Mr.  Larned  identified  himself,  soon  after  he 
became  a  citizen  of  Chicago,  with  as  many 
public  interests  as  any  man  could,  with  justice 
to  his  own  private  business. 

In  1850  he  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  the 
act  to  incorporate  the  Chicago  City  Hydrauhc 
Company,  under  which  the  Chicago  Water 
Works  were  constructed,  and  which  are  now 
the  largest  pumping-works  in  the  world. 

He  was  secretary  to  the  Board  of  Education 
in  1852-54,  and  was  one  of  the  founders  and 


l6  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

trustees  of  Dearborn  Seminary.  In  1854  he 
was  the  master  spirit  in  originating  and  putting 
into  operation  that  vast  system  of  sewerage 
which  has  converted  a  great  swamp  into  the 
healthiest  of  all  the  large  cities  of  the  world 
which  maintain  and  publish  records  of  vital  sta- 
tistics. He  called  the  first  meeting,  was  chair- 
man of  the  committee  to  prepare  a  bill  to 
remedy  the  evil,  drew  the  bill,  and  when  it  be- 
came a  law,  was  the  attorney  for  the  board,  and 
aided  in  securing  for  the  city  the  priceless  ser- 
vices of  E.  S.  Chesbrough  and  Gen.  J.  D.  Web- 
ster. He  became  inspector  of  public  schools, 
and  studied  into  its  system,  probed  into  its 
weak  points,  drew  the  ordinance  for  the  office 
of  superintendent,  and  aided  to  perfect  a  sys- 
tem so  admirable  that  he  deliberately  selected 
it  in  after  years  as  the  best  preparation  for  his 
own  son  for  Harvard  University. 

Believing  that  every  citizen  owes  a  duty  to 
that  class  of  whom  his  great  Exemplar  had  de- 
clared, "  The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you,"  he 
as  early  as  1857  helped  to  organize,  and  was  the 
first  incorporator  of,  the  Chicago  Relief  and  Aid 
Society,  which  has  since  then  performed  a  work 
never  equalled  except  by  the  United  States  San- 
itary Commission  during  our  great  war;  a  char- 
ity the  record  of  whose  good  deeds  has  travelled 
around  the  habitable  globe. 

He  was  one  of  the  first  to  appreciate  the  value 
of  a  charitable  Eye  and  Ear  Infirmary,  where 
those  too  poor  to  employ  a  physician  might 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  1 7 

procure  the  most  speedy  relief,  in  many  cases 
saving  a  useful  laborer  from  becoming  a  pauper, 
and  consequently  a  charge  upon  the  State ;  and 
he  not  only  gave  of  his  means,  but  for  a  while 
was  one  of  the  trustees  of  such  an  institution. 

To  St.  Luke's  Hospital  he  was  an  early  and 
constant  donor,  has  been  one  of  its  trustees,  and 
supported  there  a  bed  where  some  poor  sufferer 
is  to-day,  blessing  the  memory  of  him  who  pro- 
videth  for  the  sick. 

He  was  one  of  the  earHest  and  most  liberal 
contributors,  in  money  and  work  and  public 
speech,  to  the  Training  School  for  Nurses,  one 
of  the  most  important  of  our  city  charities.  As 
early  as  1856  he  became  profoundly  impressed 
with  the  idea,  that  bread  ought  to  be  made  and 
furnished  at  a  reduced  cost  to  the  millions  who 
live  as  it  were  from  hand  to  mouth;  and  in 
connection  with  his  brother-in-law,  the  late 
Joseph  T.  Ryerson,  who  was  identified  with 
him  in  most  of  his  utilitarian  and  philanthropic 
efforts,  he  organized  a  mechanical  bakery,  and 
was  its  president  for  several  years;  and  during 
the  first  year  of  the  war  it  furnished  bread  and 
crackers  to  our  soldiers  in  the  West,  which 
could  not  have  reached  them  by  the  ordinary 
avenues. 

Grasping  early  the  conviction  that  this  city 
was  to  be  made  the  chief  metropolis  of  the  West 
by  the  means  of  railroads,  he  took  a  warm  in- 
terest In  projecting,  and  as  early  as  1849  became 
one  of  the  directors  of,  the  Aurora  Branch  of  the 


i8 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


Galena  and  Chicago  Union  Railroad,  and  was 
subsequently  offered  the  attorneyship  of  the  main 
road. 

Mr.  Larned  also  took  an  active  interest  in  the 
religious  world ;  was  one  of  the  first  to  move  in 
the  effort  to  procure  a  resident  bishop  for  this 
diocese,  and  to  procure  the  funds  for  the  build- 
ing of  a  cathedral  church.  He  was  one  of  the 
vestry  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Communion, 
started  as  a  missionary  church  in  the  heart  of 
the  city  by  his  intimate  friend,  the  Rev.  Henry 
B.  Whipple,  who  from  that  field  of  city  work  be- 
came one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  House  of 
Bishops  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in 
America.  In  this  connection  it  may  be  said  that 
Mr.  Larned's  public  religious  work  only  ceased 
with  his  loss  of  health.  Many  of  us  have  seen 
him  going,  through  whole  winters  of  storm  and 
snow,  to  a  poor  church  on  the  North  Side,  to 
teach  his  Bible  class;  and  he  not  infrequently 
read  the  service  and  a  sermon  both  in  our  city 
churches  and  in  the  villages  in  our  vicinity.  He 
was  a  broad  churchman,  holding  distinctly  and 
reverently  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  was  personally  attached  to  the  sim- 
ple and  unadulterated  worship  set  forth  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  of  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church. 

Mr.  Larned  has  taken  an  active  interest  and 
made  many  public  speeches  in  favor  of  control- 
ling the  sale  of  liquor  to  children;  has  taken 
public  pains  to  purify  the  stage ;  and  upon  every 


MEMORIAL   ADDRESS.  19 

question  of  reform,  his  clarion  voice  has  been 
heard  in  public  and  his  active  pen  been  busy  for 
that  great  multitude  which  can  be  reached  only 
through  the  daily  papers.  His  published  let- 
ters and  articles  in  the  newspapers  would  fill  a 
considerable  volume. 

Not  the  least  among  Mr.  Larned's  contribu- 
tions to  the  literature  of  this  city  were  the  nu- 
merous tributes  he  paid  to  the  memory  of  his 
friends.  His  speeches,  in  memory  of  Colonel 
Hamilton,  Judge  Baron,  Judge  McLean,  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  Judge  Manierre,  Carlos  Haven, 
Judge  Arrington,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Stephen  A. 
Goodwin,  James  M.  Walker,  and  scores  of  oth- 
ers, were  models  of  discriminating  eulogy  and 
feeling  eloquence. 

Mr.  Larned  was  peculiarly  qualified  for  a 
prominent  place  on  what  some  would  consider 
the  broadest  field  of  national  labor  at  Wash- 
ington, and  his  friends  repeatedly  urged  him 
to  accept  a  nomination  for  Congress ;  but  he  was 
never  willing  to  give  up  the  charm  of  his  private 
domestic  life,  and  insisted  that  there  was  work 
enough  to  do  for  morals  and  society,  for  litera- 
ture and  the  arts,  for  charity  and  religion,  in  a 
city  like  Chicago.  And  yet  the  position  which 
he  filled  from  i860  to  1865  might  truly  be  called 
a  national  one.  Mr.  Larned  had  been  for  sev- 
eral years  the  law  partner  of  our  late  brother 
Isaac  N.  Arnold,  in  a  lucrative  business;  and  the 
time  had  come  when  Mr.  Arnold  felt  that  he  had 
acquired  a  sufficient  fortune  and  had  achieved  a 


20  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

sufficient  success  at  the  bar,  and  owed  his  future 
time  and  labor  to  the  legislation  and  government 
of  the  nation  at  large.  He  resolved  in  1858  to 
go  to  Congress ;  and  Mr.  Lamed  canvassed  this 
district,  which  was  then  a  large  one,  for  his 
friend. 

FUGITIVE   SLAVE   CASES. 

In  March,  i860,  Mr.  Larned  extended  his 
name  and  fame  as  an  orator  in  the  fugitive  slave 
cases.  Looking  back  upon  our  past  lives,  we 
find  that  all  we  have  seen,  as  well  as  all  we 
have  read  or  heard,  which  has  made  a  vivid  im- 
pression upon  us,  is  grouped  or  crystallized  into 
certain  distinct  pictures.  Who  that  has  ever 
seen  Trumbull's  picture  of  the  death  of  General 
Warren,  at  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  can  ever 
forget  it  ?  Who  that  has  visited  the  National 
Gallery,  on  Trafalgar  Square,  will  ever  forget 
the  fall  of  Lord  Chatham,  in  the  House  of 
Lords  ?  Who  that  has  visited  Faneuil  Hall 
will  not  recall  the  picture  of  Webster,  in  the 
act  of  closing  his  grand  oration  for  the  Union 
and  against  the  doctrine  of  disunion,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Calhoun  and  Clay  and  the  other  great 
Senators  of  1830? 

Every  lawyer  carries  with  him  upon  the  illu- 
minated sheets  of  memory  the  most  vivid  pic- 
tures of  the  striking  scenes  he  has  witnessed  in 
court,  —  scenes  which,  by  reason  of  their  actual 
personality,  the  present  visible  objects  of  excite- 
ment, of  hope  or  joy,  of  triumph  or  despair,  far 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  21 

surpass,  in  their  influence  upon  the  feelings,  any 
tragedy  of  fiction  or  history  even  by  a  Booth, 
an  Irving,  or  a  Jefferson. 

Among  such  pictures  on  my  own  brain  is  that 
of  the  Freeman  murder  trial  in  Auburn,  N.  Y. 
William  H.  Seward,  assisted  by  Samuel  Blatch- 
ford,  now  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 
battled  for  the  life  of  an  insane  negro  for  weeks 
against  the  wit  and  eloquence  of  the  Attorney 
General,  John  Van  Buren,  in  the  presence  of 
a  community  clamoring  for  the  blood  of  the 
murderer. 

Another  such  picture  is  that  of  the  first  fugi- 
tive slave  case  which  occurred  in  western  New 
York  shortly  after  the  passage  of  the  law  of  1850. 
It  was  in  that  same  court-house  in  Auburn,  N.  Y. 
The  stately  and  venerable  Conkling  was  upon 
the  bench;  Senator  Seward  and  his  nephew 
Clarence,  and  Blatchford  and  Pomeroy,  were 
interested  listeners.  Henry  A.  Foster,  for  many 
years  judge  of  the  Court  of  Appeals,  but  then 
United  States  attorney  under  Pierce,  had  the  un- 
popular task  of  prosecuting  a  law  most  repug- 
nant to  the  citizens  of  western  New  York ;  and 
the  brilliant  Ganson,  of  Buffalo,  in  words  of  fire 
argued  against  the  constitutionality  of  the  law. 

Other  such  pictures  were  the  Busch  murder 
case,  where  our  Mr.  Arnold  and  the  late  Thomas 
Hoyne  successfully  fought  for  the  young  lawyer 
who,  in  defending  his  father's  possession  of  his 
property,  unintentionally  killed  a  trespasser; 
and  the  Jumpertz  case,  the  Hodge  case,  and  the 


22  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

North  Shore  accretion  case,  where  for  days  I 
watched  the  witty  and  persistent  John  A.  Wills 
badger  Abraham  Lincoln  until  every  one  in  the 
court-room  lost  patience  except  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself,  who  never  for  an  instant  betrayed  the 
slightest  resentment  or  annoyance. 

But  of  all  the  court  pictures  I  now  recall,  that 
which  seems  to  transcend  all  others  in  impor- 
tance was  the  fugitive  slave  case  of  i860  in  this 
city,  before  his  Honor  Judge  Drummond. 

A  prominent  lawyer  once  said  of  Mr.  Larned 
that  he  never  heard  him  in  a  case  when  he  did 
not  seem  to  him  to  make  the  best  speech  which 
the  subject  admitted.  Here  was  a  limitless  field  ! 
The  entire  South  and  the  conservative  men  of 
all  parties  at  the  North  were  clamoring  for  con- 
victions. Southern  slaveholders  and  their  news- 
papers were  arousing  the  most  bitter  irritations 
among  their  people  by  declaring  that  Northern 
juries  would  not  sustain  the  law  which  Chief 
Justice  Taney  and  a  majority  of  the  Supreme 
Court  had  decided  was  constitutional.  The 
aged  and  justly  venerated  Justice  McLean,  pre- 
siding justice  of  this  circuit,  had  declared  against 
the  constitutionality  of  the  law  in  unanswerable 
logic,  and  shown  that  many  of  the  statements 
of  facts  in  the  opinion  of  Taney  were  entirely 
erroneous. 

The  United  States  Marshal  for  this  district  ad- 
hered to  the  Buchanan  wing  of  the  Democracy ; 
and  the  jury  was  composed  almost  entirely  of 
Democrats,   the    only  two    Republicans   being 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


23 


original  corporators  of  this  Society,  Edward  I. 
Tinkham  and  Gen.  Joseph  D.  Webster.  In  the 
first  case  tried,  Mr.  Larned  took  no  active  part, 
but  kept  notes  and  listened.  Isaac  N.  Arnold, 
Stephen  A.  Goodwin,  and  the  eloquent  Joseph 
Knox  had  all  made  remarkable  speeches  for 
the  defendant.  They  felt  that  momentous  is- 
sues were  at  stake,  and  that  the  eyes  of  the 
country  were  upon  them. 

The  Government  had  called  in  the  services 
of  Judge  Arrington,  whose  massive  intellect,  ex- 
uberant fancy,  and  fascinating  oratory  were  used 
at  their  best ;  and  the  "  Press  and  Tribune  "  of 
the  8th  of  March  admitted  that  his  argument 
was  one  of  the  most  able  and  eloquent  forensic 
efforts  in  the  annals  of  our  bar. 

Among  the  witnesses  were  our  associate  mem- 
bers,—  Chief  Justice  John  D.  Caton,  to  prove 
the  acts  of  the  defendants ;  and  B.  C.  Cook  and 
W.  D.  Houghteling,  to  testify  to  their  blameless 
and  exemplary  lives  and  reputations.  The  first 
case  resulted  in  a  conviction.  In  the  second  case 
(United  States  v.  Joseph  Stout)  Mr.  Larned  took 
the  lead.  He  was  then  less  than  forty  years  of 
age ;  but  the  subject  was  part  of  his  existence, 
and  incorporated  into  the  very  fibre  of  his 
moral  and  emotional  nature.  No  epitome  or 
description  of,  or  extracts  from,  his  argument 
could  do  any  justice  to  the  fervor  of  his  appeal 
or  the  thrilling  effect  of  his  eloquence,  held  in 
control  ever  by  his  loving  respect  for  Judge 
Drummond,  and  his  absolute  command  on  all 


24  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

occasions  of  his  own  temper  and  his  own  rea- 
son. It  was  an  elaboration  of  his  old  speech 
at  the  Market  House,  where  he  had  first  exhib- 
ited his  remarkable  powers  with  the  same  kind 
of  eloquence  which  first  notified  the  conserva- 
tives of  Faneuil  Hall  that  the  times  demanded 
and  had  created  a  Wendell  Phillips,  who  there 
thundered  forth  the  rights  of  man  as  James  Otis 
and  Joseph  Warren  and  John  Adams  had  done 
in  1775. 

Such  was  its  effect  upon  the  jury,  that  though 
they  were  kept  out  for  parts  of  three  days  and 
two  whole  nights,  they  would  not  return  a  ver- 
dict of  guilty.  Mr.  Larned's  argument  was 
published  in  the  columns  of  "  The  Chicago 
Press  and  Tribune"  on  the  19th  of  March,  and 
was  read  by  thousands  of  people  all  over  our 
great  Northwest  less  than  fifty  days  before  that 
convention  which  nominated  Abraham  Lincoln, 
and  adopted  a  platform  which  declared  that 
slavery  was  local  and  not  national,  —  the  creation 
of  local  law  alone,  —  and  should  not  be  extended 
into  any  free  territory  of  these  United  States. 

The  balance  of  the  year  i860  was  largely 
spent  by  Mr.  Larned  in  active  campaign  labor 
and  speeches  for  Lincoln  and  Arnold ;  and  from 
that  time  on  until  1865,  during  those  terrible 
years,  he  was  one  of  the  powers  which  upheld 
our  great  fabric  of  constitutional  liberty  and 
saved  the  nation. 

Mr.  Larned  was  one  of  the  most  earnest  and 
active  members  of  the  famous  Union  Defence 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  25 

Committee  during  the  war,  —  a  committee  com- 
posed of  such  leaders  of  men  as  Judge  Thomas 
Drummond,  Judge  John  M.  Wilson,  Judge  Mani- 
erre,  Thomas  Hoyne,  Captain  George  Schneider, 
and  others,  —  a  committee  which  accomplished 
for  our  nation  what  the  Committees  of  Safety 
and  Correspondence  did  for  our  colonies  in 
I  yys-yS.  It  was  in  constant  communication  with 
Lincoln,  Seward,  Cameron,  Trumbull,  Arnold, 
Washburne,  Fremont,  and  other  authorities,  both 
here  and  at  Washington,  Kentucky,  and  St. 
Louis,  guiding  and  directing  popular  opinion, 
formulating  proper  legislation  for  the  new  order 
of  things,  raising  and  equipping  troops,  creating 
defences  for  our  northern  frontiers,  selecting 
proper  ambassadors  to  undeceive  the  people  of 
Europe  taught  to  believe  that  the  Southern 
Confederacy  was  fighting  only  for  liberty,  and 
in  raising  supplies  and  nurses  for  our  sick  and 
wounded  soldiers.  The  history  of  that  Union 
Defence  Committee  has  never  yet  been  written, 
but  would  make  one  of  the  most  interesting 
chapters  in  the  history  of  the  Northwest 

There  are  still  living  many  members  of  this 
Society  who  will  remember  their  trip  to  Cairo  in 
April,  1861,  headed  by  Judge  Drummond  and 
Mr.  Larned. 

He  was  with  Lincoln  and  Arnold  in  Wash- 
ington during  the  month  of  May,  1861,  when 
our  gallant  Ellsworth  fell  at  the  very  threshold 
and  gateway  of  those  awful  fields  of  slaughter 
which  swallowed  up  a  million  lives,  and  his  were 


26  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

among  the  tender  hands  which  carried  our  brave 
boy  from  Washington  to  his  Hudson  home ;  and 
that  scene  of  blood  and  tears,  more  touching 
from  its  isolation  than  the  future  destruction  of 
thousands,  crystallized  his  hitherto  ardent  hope 
that  slavery  should  be  obliterated  from  our  whole 
country.^ 

1  A  few  entries  in  an  old  office  book  kept  in  1861,  and  saved 
from  the  fire  in  1871,  will  illustrate  the  kind  of  life  Mr.  Lamed 
led,  not  only  in  1861,  but  all  through  the  war. 

Jan.  17,  1861.  Mr.  Lamed  presented  resolutions  of  the  bar  on 
the  death  of  Colonel  Hamilton  to  the  Superior  Court. 

March  28.  Mr.  Larned  appointed  United  States  Attorney,  and 
Mr.  Scripps,  postmaster. 

April  5.  Judge  McLean  died. 

April  6.  Bar  meeting  at  United  States  Cotirt.  Resolutions  drawn 
by  S.  A.  Goodwm.  Mr.  Lamed  presented  them  to  the  court  in  a 
beautiful  speech,  and  Judge  Drummond  made  a  feeling  reply. 

April  10.  Mr.  Lamed  circulated  petition  to  appoint  Drummond  to 
the  Supreme  Court  in  place  of  McLean. 

April  I  ^.  News  came  of  the  evaaiation  of  Fort  Sumter  and  the 
arming  of  various  Northem  States.  Great  meeting  at  Metropolitan 
Hall.  Speeches  by  Lovejoy,  Blackwell,  Arnold,  Larned,  Hoffman,  and 
others. 

April  20.  All  Chicago  in  a  fever  of  excitement  about  the  war ; 
courts  all  closed,  crowds  of  lawyers  enlisting. 

April  24.  Mr.  Lamed  and  more  than  twenty  of  us  lawyers  joined 
Company  C,  Sixtieth  regiment,  and  drilled  all  the  evening  at  Board  of 
Trade  rooms,  under  John  Van  Arman. 

May  10.  Went  to  Cairo  with  Judges  Drummond  and  Baron, 
Messrs.  Lamed,  Hickok  (of  the  "  Tribune,")  Eastman,  Gregory,  Wil- 
liams, Hapgood,  Smith,  Tucker,  Stockton,  Bradley,  Bishop,  and 
others. 

May  II.  Visited  the  camp,  and  talked  with  Colonels  Webster, 
Prentiss,  Bayne,  Wallis,  Dr.  Semmes,  and  Haven  and  others.  Mr. 
Lamed  took  one  thousand  copies  of  Beecher's  sermon  on  the  flag,  and 
distributed  them  among  the  soldiers. 

May  19.  Mr.  Larned  went  to  Washington  with  Amold  to  confer 
with  the  authorities  about  war  measures.  He  was  there  when  Ellsworth 
was  killed,  and  was  one  of  the  escorts  from  Washington  to  New  York. 


MEMORIAL   ADDRESS.  27 

And  here  let  me  read  a  letter  I  have  just  re- 
ceived from  Robert  Collyer,  that  original  genius 
who  so  long  and  so  well  represented  the  great 

May  29.  The  "  Tribune "  published  Mr.  Lamed's  letter  describing 
his  Washington  visit 

June  5.  Mr.  Lamed  announced  the  death  of  Stephen  A,  Douglas 
in  the  United  States  Court. 

August  10.  Mr.  Lamed  made  a  great  war  speech  at  the  Union 
meeting. 

August  14.  News  received  of  the  battle  in  which  General  Lyon 
and  L.  L.  Jones  were  killed,  also  of  Hyatt's  death. 

August  16.  Mr.  Lamed  worked  all  day  on  the  Union  Defence  Com- 
mittee. They  are  authorized  to  equip  four  regiments.  Democrats  like 
Thomas  Hoyne  and  John  Van  Arman  at  work  also. 

August  24.    Mr.  Lamed  made  a  great  war  speech  at  Bryan  Hall. 

August  27.  Mr.  Lamed  before  Judge  Goodrich  all  day,  in  matter 
of  habeas  corJ>us  of  Captain  Crofton  for  killing  Kraffts. 

Attgusi  28.  Mr.  Lamed  went  to  Washington  with  Judge  John  M. 
Wilson,  on  Union  Defence  Committee.  They  had  a  long  interview 
with  Lmcoln,  Cameron,  Blair,  and  others.     Returned  September  7. 

September  11.  Mr.  Larned  went  to  St.  Louis  on  war  business. 
Returned  i6th. 

September  27.  Mr.  Lamed  making  stump  speeches  in  the  country 
for  enlistments. 

October  29.  Clark,  Arnold,  Bryan,  Brainerd,  Coolidge,  Semmes, 
and  others  in  all  day  with  Larned,  and  agreed  upon  a  memorial  to 
Congress. 

November  28.   Lamed  at  Pine  case  all  day  in  United  States  Court. 

1862.  January  8.  Judge  Baron  killed.  Mr.  Larned's  speech  at 
the  bar  meeting  very  eloquent. 

February  12.  Mr.  Larned  went  to  Washington,  and  was  there 
when  the  news  came  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Donelson  and  twelve  thou- 
sand prisoners.     Returned  28th. 

March  17.   Mr.  Larned  argued  the  Chickering  and  Ludington  case. 

April  I.  Mr.  Lamed  has  been  with  the  United  States  grand  jury- 
several  days. 

April  10.  Mr.  Lamed  read  Senator  TmmbuU's  confiscation  speech. 

May  5.  Mr.  Lamed  made  fine  eulogy  upon  Carlos  Haven,  at  a  bar 
meeting. 

July  19.    Mr.  Lamed  made  a  war  speech  at  Bryan  Hall. 

The  name  of  Mr.  Hyatt  recalls  a  case  which  strikingly 
exhibited  the  power  of  Mr.  Larned's  eloquence.    In  1859  a 


28  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

emotions  and  the  noble  charities  of  this  Western 
country,  but  who  has  taken  his  ripened  powers 
to  a  still  larger  field :  — 

New  York,  Dec.  9,  1884. 

Dear  Sir,  —  It  is  almost  twenty-five  years  since  my 

hand  first  clasped  the  clean  and  strong  hand  of  Edwin 

C.  Earned  on  a  bitter  winter  morning,  when  he  came 

in  very  early  to  ask  what  he  could  do  to  help  some 

gentleman  living  in  California  sent  an  agent  here  to  get  pos- 
session of  his  two  sons,  lads  of  seven  and  nine  years,  who 
were  living  here  with  their  mother.  The  father  had  some  dis- 
ease which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  live  away  from  Cali- 
fornia. His  wife  was  young  and  handsome,  and  was  unwilling 
to  leave  her  parents  and  friends  and  comforts  to  live  in  what 
was  then  an  uncultivated  frontier.  The  wife  procured  a  di- 
vorce for  desertion,  and  had  married  again  and  come  here  to 
live,  and  her  parents  were  living  with  her. 

Mr.  Lamed  sued  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  returnable 
before  Judge  John  M.  Wilson;  and  the  sheriff  brought  the 
mother  and  boys  into  court,  accompanied  by  both  grand- 
parents and  Mr.  Hyatt,  their  attorney.  Mr.  Hyatt  was  able 
and  eloquent,  and  had  the  advantage  of  the  personal  presence 
of  a  beautiful  client  whose  parents  upheld  her  action  and  whose 
children  clung  to  her  with  great  affection ;  but  when  Mr.  Lamed 
took  up  the  case  and  pictured  the  sick  and  miserable  husband, 
expatriated  from  his  home  and  kindred  by  disease,  practically 
deserted  by  his  wife  in  the  hour  of  his  sore  trial,  his  words 
were  so  earnest  and  tender  that  they  brought  streaming  tears 
down  Judge  Wilson's  face.  There  was  no  jury  and  no  audi- 
ence beyond  the  officers  of  the  court,  and  the  parties  and  their 
attorneys,  and  I  thought  the  tears  of  that  eminent  chancellor, 
pronounced  by  Judge  Arrington  the  ablest  judge  in  Illinois, 
the  most  perfect  tribute  to  Mr.  Larned's  eloquence  and  to 
his  character.  I  say  character,  for  many  lawyers  could  have 
used  the  same  or  more  eloquent  words ;  but  there  was  that 
moral  sincerity  in  all  Mr.  Lamed  said  which  carried  respect 
and  conviction  to  the  brain  and  the  heart  of  the  listener. 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  29 

poor  emigrants  who  were  then  on  ray  hands.  He  had 
read  an  appeal  for  them  in  the  "  Press  and  Tribune," 
and  lost  no  time  in  offering  to  help  me.  So  we  took 
hold  together,  set  them  on  their  feet,  and  from  that  day 
we  were  stanch  and  true  friends  right  on  to  the  end. 
I  think  I  could  lay  my  hands  now  on  two  or  three  men 
on  the  North  Side,  Germans,  who  were  poor  children 
in  that  hapless  band  and  are  now  well  to  do. 

It  fell  out  not  long  after  this  that  I  was  elected  min- 
ister of  Unity  Church ;  and  when  we  began  to  hold  ser- 
vices in  our  new  meeting-house,  he  came  in  one  Sunday 
and  sat  near  the  pulpit.  I  can  see  his  fine  serious  face 
there  as  I  write  this  line,  and  his  steadfast  eyes  shining 
through  his  spectacles.  These  were  the  days  when  the 
ark  of  our  covenant  was  smitten  at  Fort  Sumter,  and 
we  shook  out  our  banners,  bound  them  about  our  pul- 
pits, sang  "  When  Israel  of  the  Lord  beloved  '*  and 
"  America,"  and  all  the  psalms  we  could  lay  our  hands 
on  that  rang  out  strong  and  true  for  the  nation. 

Mr.  Lamed  came  at  once  to  the  front,  did  not  stop 
to  pick  out  the  gentlest  words,  and  shot  his  arrows  right 
and  left,  tipped  with  white  fire.  We  foregathered  in 
Washington  when  all  was  quiet  on  the  Potomac,  and 
went  among  the  camps  together,  speaking  to  the  young 
soldiers ;  and  I  mind  still  an  address  he  made  to  the 
Second  Rhode  Island  Regiment,  blended  all  of  fire  and 
tears,  and  full  of  hope  and  courage.  His  old  friend 
Bishop  Clarke  was  there  also,  and  spoke  nobly  and 
well ;  but  Mr.  Larned's  speech  was  the  best.  It  was  as 
when  "  deep  calleth  unto  deep,"  and  must  have  stayed 
in  the  hearts  of  the  boys  as  a  very  choice  memory. 

There  was  never  the  slightest  jar  in  our  friendship 
and  esteem ;  and  so  it  was  right, on  to  the  end.  I  saw 
him  here  in  New  York  for  an  instant  one  sweet  fall 


30  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

Sunday,  walking  on  the  avenue,  as  I  was  going  to  a  fun- 
eral with  no  time  to  wait,  and  wist  not  I  should  never 
see  my  good  old  friend  again. 

In  my  time  we  held  on  to  the  quiet  assurance  that 
the  North  Side  was  the  choicest  and  the  best.  The 
West  Side  could  boast  of  its  teeming  population,  and 
the  South  Side  of  its  wealth  and  splendor;  but  we 
prided  ourselves  on  the  possession  of  a  certain  love  of 
books  and  the  fine  arts,  and  the  desire  to  preserve  the 
memorials  of  the  past  which  bloomed  out  into  the  His- 
torical Society,  and  ripened  that  seed  which  is  to  grow 
into  one  of  the  noblest  and  best  libraries  in  the  world. 

Edwin  C.  Lamed,  William  B.  Ogden  (the  ablest 
man  he  had  ever  met  in  the  West,  Mr.  Emerson  said 
to  me  once),  William  Barry,  William  H.  Clarke,  and 
others  who  are  alive  and  remain,  —  these  were  the  men 
who  stood  within  the  finer  life  and  more  excellent,  in 
whom  we  nourished  a  quiet  pride.  We  love,  too,  the 
fine  old  quarter  embowered  in  maples  and  elms,  with 
a  great  tree  here  and  there  which  had  survived  from 
the  wilderness,  and  those  fine  old  mansions  standing  in 
open  squares.  The  old  things  have  passed  away  now, 
and  all  things  have  become  new ;  but  it  is  good  to  re- 
member these  fore-elders,  whose  lives  were  so  full  of 
noble  aspirations  and  endeavors ;  and  among  these  no 
man  is  more  worthy  the  reverence  of  the  new  genera- 
tion than  Edwin  C.  Lamed. 

Yours  always, 

Robert  Collyer. 
To  D.  Goodwin. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  President 
of  the  United  States,  in  March,  1861,  he  imme- 
diately appointed  Mr.  Lamed  district  attorney 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  31 

for  this  district.  It  was  with  real  reluctance 
Mr.  Larned  accepted  this  the  only  office  he  ever 
filled;  but  his  appointment  was  so  manifestly 
appropriate  that  the  whole  bar  of  our  city,  with- 
out distinction  of  party,  recommended  it.  Mr. 
Arnold  begged  him  to  accept  it  as  a  personal 
favor  to  himself,  and  both  the  "  Press  and  Trib- 
une "  and  the  **  Chicago  Times  "  applauded  it 
as  a  most  honorable  appointment.  He  was  for 
four  years  literally  an  attorney  for  the  United 
States,  giving  to  the  country  during  those 
troubled  times  the  best  services  of  his  life. 
When  his  friend  Mr.  Arnold  left  Congress,  Mr. 
Larned  resigned.  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  him  to 
continue  in  the  office,  but  finally  accepted  his 
resignation  with  expressions  of  great  regret. 

The  canvass  of  1862  was  a  most  exciting  one. 
The  war  and  the  non-success  of  the  army  in  Vir- 
ginia, and  the  want  of  harmony  between  McClel- 
lan  and  the  administration  created  a  reaction 
against  the  Republican  party.  Horatio  Sey- 
mour was  elected  governor  of  New  York.  To 
stem  the  tide  in  Illinois,  Mr.  Larned  made  every 
effort  of  his  great  powers.  Our  congressional 
district  then  reached  as  far  as  Aurora,  and  he 
spoke  to  our  people  from  the  stump  in  every 
part  of  the  district.  He  believed  that  the  defeat 
of  his  friend  and  his  party  at  that  time,  and  in 
this  city  where  Lincoln  was  nominated,  and  the 
chief  city  of  the  Northwest,  meant  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  Union  and  the  useless  sacrifice  of 
untold  treasure  and  blood ;  he  worked  day  and 


32  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

night  with  almost  delirious  energy  to  sustain 
the  flag. 

There  were  few  to  whom  the  victory  was  more 
justly  due,  and  it  cost  him  a  great  price;  it  cost 
him  his  health  for  a  long  and  weary  year.  He 
went  to  Europe  for  rest  in  April,  1863,  accom- 
panied by  his  son ;  but  rest  to  such  brains  as  his 
comes  not  by  repose  or  inaction,  it  comes  only 
by  change  of  work ;  and  the  public  press  and  the 
clubs  with  which  he  has  been  associated  have 
profited  by  all  his  journeys  in  letters  of  vivid 
description  of  men  and  things  in  foreign  lands, 
full  of  thought  and  observation,  generally  incul- 
cating some  moral  principle  or  advocating  some 
public  charity. 

For  some  years  before  the  fire  of  1871  Mr. 
Larned  had  retired  from  business  and  resided  in 
the  East,  but  immediately  after  the  fire  he  re- 
turned and  spent  the  whole  winter  at  work  in 
the  Relief  and  Aid  Society.  An  extract  from 
his  speech  at  the  popular  meeting  in  favor  of 
the  Chicago  Relief  Bill  pending  before  Congress 
in  1872  will  afford  an  example  of  his  style  and 
sentiments :  — 

"I  am  not  a  free-trader.  I  am  a  protectionist  on 
principle ;  but  at  the  same  time  I  am  warmly  in  favor 
of  the  Chicago  Relief  Bill,  and  think  it  ought  to  be- 
come a  law.  It  has  been  said  that  the  bill  is  uncon- 
stitutional. If  I  believed  the  bill  to  be  unconstitu- 
tional, however  much  my  attachment  to  Chicago  might 
prompt  me  to  wish  to  see  it  passed,  I  should  be  unwill- 
ing to  violate  any  of  the  principles  of  the  Constitution 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  33 

to  secure  that  result.  I  feel  very  safe  in  following  in 
the  steps  of  the  chairman  of  the  Judiciary  Committee 
in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Lyman  Trumbull.  Of  the  merits 
of  the  bill,  it  seems  to  me  there  can  be  but  one 
opinion.  It  is  a  simple  expedient  to  enable  Chicago 
to  get  building  material  at  the  normal  prices  ruling 
throughout  the  country.  It  is  not  a  bill  to  favor  Chi- 
cago, but  it  is  a  bill  to  prevent  Chicago  from  being 
disfavored.  It  is  not  to  confer  any  great  advantages 
upon  Chicago,  but  to  relieve  her  from  the  enormous 
disadvantages  which  will  be  thrown  upon  her  in  con- 
sequence of  the  unparalleled  calamity  that  has  fallen 
upon  her.  If  we  were  in  our  natural  position  we 
would  want  no  favors ;  but  the  fire  has  desolated  our 
city,  and  the  very  energy  which  is  rebuilding  it,  and 
which  the  world  admires  because  it  rushes  forward  with 
such  tremendous  speed,  makes  an  enormous  demand 
for  building  materials  of  all  sorts  and  descriptions 
within  a  very  short  space  of  time. 

"The  common  sympathies  of  humanity,  the  com- 
mon feeling  between  man  and  man  that  has  manifested 
itself  in  that  magnificent  charity  which  has  poured  its 
bounties  from  all  parts  of  the  world  for  the  relief  of 
human  suffering,  should  extend  itself  into  business 
circles,  and  into  Congress,  and  wherever  men  are 
brought  together." 

With  all  Mr.  Larned's  work  and  sympathy  for 
the  poor  and  oppressed,  for  the  sick  and  the 
troubled,  for  the  dying  and  the  dead,  there  was 
no  gloom  in  his  nature,  his  smile,  or  his  voice. 
That  bane  of  men  called  "  irritability,"  which  so 
often  robs  the  ofBce  and  the  counting-house  of 
all  pleasure  and  ease,  and  the  domestic  hearth 
3 


34  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

of  all  peace  and  comfort  when  the  master  is 
present,  was  unknown  to  him.  Weary  with 
work,  often  distressed  by  disease,  and  worried 
by  a  thousand  cares  and  vexations,  he  ever 
maintained  the  courtesy  of  Philip  Sidney  and 
the  long-suffering,  uncomplaining  patience  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  To  meet  him  on  the  street 
on  the  darkest  or  gloomiest  day  was  like  a  sud- 
den burst  of  sunshine.  His  beaming  cordiality 
not  only  lighted  up  his  own  countenance,  but 
called  out  all  latent  warmth  from  the  hearts  of 
his  friends.  Those  who  remember  him  as  presi- 
dent of  the  Anonymous  Club  or  the  Literary 
Club  will  recall  his  hearty  and  sympathetic 
laugh,  always  the  first  and  the  loudest,  never 
laughing  at  one,  but  always  with  one,  in  joyous 
sympathy.  Anything  gross  or  coarse  shamed 
and  humiliated  him;  and  nothing  ever  passed 
his  lips  which  might  not  be  unblushingly  re- 
peated before  a  Christian  wife  or  mother. 

Of  his  domestic  life  I  dare  not  trust  myself 
to  speak,  even  in  this  place,  within  a  stone's- 
throw  of  his  home  for  twenty-five  years,  and 
in  the  presence  of  none  but  his  neighbors  and 
friends.  Shall  we  any  of  us  ever  forget  that 
ideal  home,  where  absolute  purity  and  religion 
were  made  attractive  by  liberal  hospitality,  the 
heartiest  humor,  the  tenderest  courtesy,  and 
the  highest  range  of  poetical  thought  and 
culture? 

Mr.  Larned's  career  in  this  world  is  over.  It 
closed  as  he  must  have  wished.     At  a  bar  meet- 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  35 

ing   in   the  month  of  May,  1879,  he  used  the 
following  language: — 

"When  a  man  at  the  end  of  a  long,  useful,  and 
honorable  life,  in  the  full  possession  of  his  unimpaired 
powers,  passes  from  the  present  to  a  higher  form  of 
life,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  lamentation.  Death  is  in- 
evitable ;  it  comes  to  every  man,  and  when  the  further 
continuance  of  life  upon  this  earth  would  afford  no 
further  opportunity  for  growth  and  development,  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  desire  that  our  own  lives 
or  the  lives  of  those  who  are  dear  to  us  should  here  be 
further  prolonged. 

*'  Looking  upon  death  as  I  look  upon  it,  as  only  the 
entrance  to  a  larger  and  loftier  life,  it  seems  to  me 
most  fitting  that  when  a  man  can  achieve  nothing 
further  here  he  should  pass  up  into  the  nobler  life 
above. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  happiest  and  most  desirable 
of  all  deaths  that  can  befall  us  is  to  be  taken  suddenly 
away,  in  the  full  possession  of  unimpaired  powers, 
from  a  life  of  laborious  activity  and  usefulness  here, 
and  translated  at  once  into  the  higher  life  of  the 
spirit." 

Such,  substantially,  was  his  own  lot.  At 
a  comparatively  recent  period  he  was  in  the 
front  rank  of  active  practice.  His  physicians 
became  aware  of  a  disease  of  the  heart  which 
must  eventually  prove  fatal;  but  his  intellect 
continued  active,  and  his  pen  sent  his  thoughts 
into  the  daily  and  religious  papers  down  to 
the  last  week  of  his  life,  in  words  clothed  with 
the  earnestness  of  one  who  already  walked  in 
the  border  land. 


36  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

We  repeat  for  him  his  own  expressive  words, 
spoken  not  long  ago  of  one  he  loved :  — 

"The  life  of  our  friend  has  dosed ;  it  is  closed  hon- 
orably, usefully,  and  nobly.  As  we  leave  him  in  the 
grave  we  can  turn  away  with  the  feeling  that  he  leaves 
behind  him  an  honorable  record  and  an  untarnished 
name,  with  the  assured  faith  that  he  has  passed  from 
the  earthly  to  the  heavenly  life." 


ADDRESS. 

BY  RT.  REV.  S.  S.  HARRIS,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Bishop  of  Michigan, 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen : 

As  I  have  listened  to-night  to  the  eloquent 
Memorial  Address  that  has  been  read,  one 
thought  has  risen  up  in  my  mind  among  the 
grateful  memories  of  our  departed  friend;  and 
that  is,  how  goodly  and  gracious  a  thing  this 
commemoration  is.  How  characteristic,  may  I 
not  add,  of  this  great  and  magnanimous  city, 
whose  singular  fortune  it  has  been  to  number 
among  her  sons  so  many  strong  men,  and  whose 
singular  praise  it  is  that  she  has  known  how  to 
cherish  them  while  living  and  to  honor  them 
when  dead.  Perhaps  nowhere  in  all  the  world 
are  men  more  entirely  required  to  stand  on 
their  simple  merits  than  here,  and  nowhere  is 
real  merit  more  cordially  recognized.  In  two 
respects  this  city  has  been  highly  favored. 
Early  in  her  history,  while  her  character  was 
being   formed,    she    recruited    her   professional 


38  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

and  commercial  ranks  from  among  the  best 
and  bravest  of  the  whole  land.  By  a  principle 
of  natural  selection,  the  boldest,  best  equipped, 
and  most  aspiring  spirits  were  attracted  hither 
by  the  rising  fortunes  of  this  western  metropo- 
lis; and  by  a  principle,  not  less  salutary,  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest,  all  but  the  best  and 
bravest  of  these  soon  fell  out  of  the  ranks  in 
the  eager  strife.  Young  men  like  Larned  and 
Arnold  and  Ogden  girded  themselves  for  val- 
iant adventure  when  they  came  hither,  and 
brought  with  them  not  only  the  weapons  of 
conflict,  but  great  and  constant  souls  that  had 
the  inborn  power  to  wield  them.  And  so  it 
came  to  pass  that  those  great-hearted  young 
men  were  welcomed  to  Chicago  in  that  early 
time,  and  they  in  turn  repai^  the  hospitable 
debt  by  making  Chicago  what  she  is  to-day. 
Like  a  good  foster  mother  she  watched  with 
pride  their  growing  powers,  and  had  the  wise 
magnanimity  to  nourish  at  her  unfailing  breasts 
the  adopted  sons  whose  courage,  enterprise,  and 
greatness  of  soul  were  to  make  her  a  wonder 
and  a  praise  through  the  whole  earth. 

This  magnanimous  spirit  then  has  been  no 
accident.  The  large-mindedness  so  character- 
istic of  this  city,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  has 
been  the  natural  result  of  that  good  fortune 
which  early  intrusted  the  destiny  of  Chicago 
to  the  shaping  of  large-minded  men.  Men  like 
Edwin  Channing  Larned  created  the  moral  at- 
mosphere in  which  they  lived.     Like  mountains 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  39 

verdure-clad  and  crowned  with  light,  whose  un- 
failing waters  freshen  the  valleys  and  gladden 
all  the  land,  the  Ogdens,  Arnolds,  and  Larneds 
of  Chicago  made  the  city  the  congenial  home 
of  strength  and  greatness.  The  open-minded, 
genial,  unfailing  interest  and  affection  which 
Mr.  Larned  delighted  to  lavish  on  those  around 
him,  not  only  gladdened  and  strengthened  all 
about  him,  but  returned  in  showers  of  blessings 
upon  his  head.  And  now  that  he  is  gone,  and 
our  faces  shall  be  lighted  by  his  genial  presence 
no  more,  we  are  here  in  the  very  spirit  which 
he  and  his  companions  engendered,  to  repay 
to  his  memory  a  part  of  the  gracious  debt  that 
we  owe. 

But  these  considerations  have  been  suggested 
with  sufficient  force  by  the  gentleman  who  has 
preceded  me.  Let  me  turn  to  my  own  special 
part  among  the  honorable  duties  of  this  hour. 
I  am  asked  to  speak  of  Mr.  Larned  as  a  scholar 
and  a  Christian.  Let  me  briefly  speak  of  these 
characteristics  in  their  order.  With  the  train- 
ing and  technical  equipment  of  the  scholar,  Mr. 
Larned  was  amply  furnished.  The  struggle  and 
effort  which  he  made  to  secure  his  education 
were  not  the  least  valuable  part  of  it,  and  on 
the  verge  of  manhood  he  took  his  degree  at 
Brown  University.  After  a  year  or  so  spent  in 
the  scholarly  pursuit  of  teaching,  he  devoted 
himself  with  characteristic  ardor  and  brilliant 
success  to  one  of  the  learned  professions.  But 
not  in  equipment  and  professional  attainment 


40 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


alone,  but  in  all  the  habits  of  his  life,  Mr. 
Larned  was  always  a  scholar.  Not  only  in  the 
many  productions  of  his  pen,  always  strong, 
always  graceful,  always  luminous,  nor  in  the 
encouragement  and  patronage  which  he  de- 
lighted to  bestow  upon  all  the  movements 
around  him  in  the  interest  of  philosophy,  cul- 
ture, and  science,  nor  in  his  well-remembered 
triumphs  in  the  forum  and  on  the  platform, 
but  chiefly  in  the  sustained  altitude  of  his  mind, 
the  ever  fresh  and  ever  young  enthusiasm  of 
his  literary  and  philosophic  interest,  Mr.  Larned 
deserves  rank  among  the  scholarly  men  of  our 
country.  Some  of  the  characteristics  of  his 
mind  were  so  remarkable  that  I  may  be  par- 
doned, perhaps,  if  I  briefly  mention  one  or  two 
of  them.  Among  them  was  one  that  was  of  the 
very  essence  of  all  true  scholarship ;  and  that 
is,  a  love  of  the  truth,  —  of  truth  in  all  its  forms, 
for  the  truth's  sake.  The  singular  thing  about 
him  in  this  respect  was  that  though  he  was 
both  a  man  of  thought  and  a  man  of  action,  he 
never  seemed  to  tire  of  taking  in  fresh  supplies 
of  truth.  Most  men  make  haste  to  get  what 
they  must  have,  and  then  close  the  pursuit. 
Their  minds  ever  made  up,  they  become  im- 
patient and  intolerant  of  new  views  which,  if 
entertained,  might  force  them  to  reconstruct 
their  opinions.  Such  men  soon  cease  to  learn, 
and  finally  cease  to  think.  Not  so  Mr.  Larned. 
Above  all  men  I  have  ever  known,  his  hospi- 
table mind  was  always  ready  and  eager  for  every 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  41 

fresh  arrival  of  thought.  He  had  a  hunger  and 
thirst  for  truth  and  all  kinds  of  righteousness. 
And  to  this  is  due  the  remarkable  freshness 
of  his  mind  to  the  very  last ;  the  strong,  living 
interest  that  he  took  in  the  newest  books,  the 
latest  development  of  research.  Up  to  the  very- 
time  when  his  voice  went  down  into  silence  there 
was  no  issue  in  science,  politics,  or  letters  that 
did  not  engage  his  intelligent  and  enthusiastic 
interest.  But  there  was  coupled  with  this 
another  characteristic  of  the  man  that  saved 
him  from  all  crudeness,  incertitude,  and  vacil- 
lation. Though  he  was  a  learner  all  his  days, 
he  was  also  a  mature  scholar,  a  finished  philoso- 
pher, a  man  of  positive  convictions  and  definite 
views ;  and  the  characteristic  that  made  him  so 
was  his  remarkable  mental  vitality,  —  his  intellec- 
tual, moral,  emotional  vitality.  He  possessed 
an  amazing  and  unfailing  power  of  mental  di- 
gestion and  assimilation.  Each  truth  that  he 
received  passed  into  his  own  being,  and  imme- 
diately he  was  ready  for  more.  With  singular 
clearness  of  perception  and  power  of  discrimi- 
nation he  was  able,  as  if  by  instinct,  to  reject 
the  false  and  appropriate  the  true,  referring  it 
to  its  own  particular  place  in  the  large  system 
of  his  thought.  The  result  was  that  though  he 
was  always  open-minded,  he  was  also  a  man  of 
formed  opinions,  a  man  of  equipoise,  a  man  of 
thought  and  a  man  of  action,  a  man  of  reason- 
ableness, but  of  living  stability;  his  stability 
being  not  like  the  rigidity  of  a  dead,  sapless, 


42  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

branchless  trunk,  but  like  the  living  oak  which 
rejoices  in  the  sunlight,  but  is  not  afraid  of  the 
storms,  and  which  is  nurtured  by  both  sunshine 
and  storms  into  larger  growth  and  greater 
strength  and  vitality. 

And  now,  that  we  may  know  how  early  these 
characteristics  displayed  themselves  in  his  life, 
and  the  impressions  which  they  made  as  he 
passed  through  life's  varied  duties,  I  am  per- 
mitted to  read  a  letter  just  received  by  Major 
Goodwin  from  George  William  Curtis,  his  boyish 
companion  and  Hfe-long  friend. 

West  New  Brighton,  Staten  Island,  N.  Y., 
Dec,  12,  1884. 

My  dear  Sir,  —  Mr.  Lamed  was  one  of  my  earliest 
friends  and  playmates.  We  were  immediate  neighbors 
in  the  city  of  Providence,  where  we  were  both  bom, 
close  to  Roger  Williams'  spring;  and  through  all  my 
boyhood  he  was  my  constant  companion.  From  the 
first  his  taste  for  study  and  his  intellectual  interests 
were  very  evident ;  and  the  early  necessity  of  earning 
his  living  did  not  relax  his  devotion  to  books  nor 
interrupt  his  hope  of  going  to  college.  His  cheerful 
and  equable  temper  turned  all  his  tasks  into  play,  and 
some  of  the  pleasantest  hours  that  I  recall  are  those 
which  I  spent  with  him  upon  his  rounds  of  duty.  His 
mother  encouraged  and  developed  his  literary  tastes 
and  stimulated  his  generous  ambition,  and  the  atmos- 
phere of  his  home  was  always  that  of  plain  living  and 
high  thinking,  sweet,  healthful,  and  serene.  The 
pleasant  neighborhood  of  Providence  of  those  days, 
the  peaceful  and  historic  banks  of  the  Seconk,  the 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  43 

"Grotto,"  the  woods  at  Fruit  Hill,  the  still  water  above 
the  "Cove,"  and  the  heights  and  the  harbor  below  India 
Point,  long  sauntering  summer  days,  picnics,  serenades, 
endless  walking  and  boating,  are  most  happily  associ- 
ated with  my  old  comrade. 

The  child  is  father  of  the  man,  and  I  can  plainly 
see  in  my  recollections  of  the  boy  all  that  Mr.  Lamed 
became.  The  cheerful  self-reliance,  the  quiet  sym- 
pathy, the  acute  perception,  the  hearty  bonhommie, 
the  generous  appreciation,  the  natural  inclination  for 
the  just  and  humane  view,  the  strong  practical  sense, 
foretold  in  the  child  the  efficient,  public-spirited,  high- 
hearted, trustworthy,  conscientious  citizen  that  you 
knew.  After  he  went  to  college  and  left  Providence 
I  saw  little  of  him,  and  our  constant  intimacy  was 
never  renewed.  But  the  affectionate  friendship  of  boy- 
hood still  continued,  and  I  saw  with  delight,  in  the 
faithful  discharge  of  his  duty,  and  in  the  regard  and 
respect  of  his  fellow-citizens,  how  fully  the  promise  of 
his  youth  was  fulfilled.  His  views  of  public  affairs 
were  sound  and  conservative,  and  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  distinctively  American.  Their  basis  was  strong 
common  sense.  Naturally  he  was  of  an  ardent  tem- 
perament ;  but  he  held  himself  firmly  in  hand,  and 
for  all  that  he  said  and  did  he  could  plainly  give  the 
reason.  A  certain  natural  candor  and  generosity  made 
him  just  to  those  from  whom  he  differed.  He  could 
indeed  dissent  without  bitterness  or  suspicion;  and 
in  all  things  he  had  that  charity  which  never  faileth, 
and  which  the  Apostle  accounts  the  chief  of  virtues. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  a  memorable  day.  It 
was  the  day  of  the  Centenary  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  at 
Cambridge,  when  Wendell  Phillips  delivered  the  ora- 
tion ;  and  after  the  address  and  the  dinner  I  had  the 


44  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

pleasure  of  introducing  Mr.  Lamed  to  the  orator.  His 
delight  in  that  characteristic  discourse  was  very  great, 
and  his  warm  and  eloquent  expression  of  it  to  the 
orator  was  very  striking.  He  too  had  the  instinct,  the 
ambition,  and  the  skill  of  the  orator ;  and  in  the  hearty 
tribute  of  the  man,  already  of  threescore,  I  saw  all 
the  unchanged  generosity  of  the  boy  that  I  remem- 
bered. I  did  not  know  that  he  was  ill,  nor  was  there 
any  sign  of  ilhiess  or  apprehension  in  his  manner.  A 
few  weeks  before  the  end  he  sent  me  a  printed  state- 
ment of  his  views  of  the  political  situation,  very  grave 
and  impressive  to  me  as  the  thought  of  a  man  in  full 
view  of  death  at  any  moment,  but  calmly  and  cheer- 
fully faithful  to  the  duties  of  this  life,  as  long  as  life 
lasted.  I  suppose  that  no  member  of  your  society 
knew  your  associate  earlier  than  I  knew  him,  and  no 
man  can  know  more  truly  than  I  how  much  nobleness 
of  character  is  gone  with  him,  nor  cherish  his  memory 
with  more  aflectionate  regard. 

Very  truly  yours, 

George  William  Curtis. 
Daniel  Goodwin,  Jr.,  Esq. 

Of  Mr.  Larned  as  a  Christian,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  I  should  speak  at  much  length  here. 
Like  all  the  outgoings  of  his  interest  and  affec- 
tion, his  religion  partook  of  the  character  of  the 
man.  Indeed,  so  homogeneous  was  his  nature, 
so  entire  was  his  integrity,  that  his  religion  was 
the  outcome  of  all  departments  of  his  thought 
and  of  all  phases  of  his  life.  He  was  a  man 
of  clear  and  strong  religious  convictions,  yet 
so  large  was  his  nature  that  even  his  most  in- 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


45 


tense  religious  convictions  could  not  be  narrow. 
Though  a  man  of  cultivated  tastes  and  strong 
affections,  yet  the  main  avenue  to  his  religious 
nature  was  through  his  intellect  rather  than 
through  his  emotions.  Therefore  there  was 
always  a  lofty  dignity  about  his  religious  life, 
which  in  a  man  less  sweet  and  large  would 
perhaps  have  been  disposed  to  look  with  some 
disdain  upon  what  seemed  to  him  to  be  trivi- 
alities both  of  dogmatism  and  ritual.  As  it  was, 
his  religion  could  be  fitly  described  as  "  sweet 
reasonableness,"  though  for  himself  he  was  able 
to  respond  to  the  key-note  of  the  highest  wor- 
ship struck  long  ago  by  the  Master  hand,  "  God 
is  a  spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

Mr.  Larned  was  a  devoted  son  of  the  church 
of  his  affection  and  choice.  He  had  a  clear 
understanding  of  her  comprehensive  theology. 
He  felt  a  proper  interest  in  her  manifold  activi- 
ties. He  delighted  to  do  his  Master's  will  in 
deeds  of  charity  and  love.  And  what  a  noble 
type  of  the  Christian  man  he  was !  As  father, 
as  husband,  as  brother,  as  friend,  it  was  my 
privilege  to  mark  and  ponder  how  nobly  he 
discharged  all  duties,  and  with  what  strength, 
simplicity,  and  grace  he  pressed  on  his  way 
through  life,  blessing  and  being  blessed.  Gen- 
tlemen of  the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  it  is 
our  high  privilege  to  turn  the  pages  of  history ; 
to  meditate,  to  classify,  to  preserve  the  lessons 
recorded  there.     Let  us  not  neglect  the  higher 


46  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

privilege  of  reading  divine  lessons  from  the  liv- 
ing page  of  a  consecrated  life.  Let  us  not  per- 
mit its  character  to  grow  dim  with  age,  or  to  be 
removed  into  the  misty  past  beyond  our  vision, 
before  we  learn  the  precious  meaning  of  the  life 
of  our  great-hearted  friend,  and  catch  something 
of  the  spirit  of  the  sweet  and  knightly  soul  who 
never  laid  the  armor  of  duty  down  till  he  left  it 
in  his  tent,  to  go  and  be  with  God. 

I  am  tempted  to  illustrate  what  I  have  said 
of  the  strength,  perspicacity,  self-coUectedness, 
learning,  and  deep  religious  spirit  of  this  man 
by  reading  you  something  from  the  last  literary 
work  that  he  did  before  his  death.  A  new 
book  had  come  out,  and  a  wonderful  book  it 
was.  Written  in  a  most  captivating  style,  in 
defence  of  religious  truth  and  yet  from  the 
stand-point  of  science  and  in  the  terms  of 
science,  —  I  mean  Drummond's  "  Natural  Law 
in  the  Spiritual  World," — the  rehgious  world 
was  completely  captivated  by  it  and  taken  off 
its  feet.  Not  so  our  clear-headed  friend.  In  a 
masterly  review  he  exposed  the  falseness  of 
much  of  its  reasoning,  the  enormity  and  harm- 
fulness  of  many  of  its  conclusions.  And  in  do- 
ing this  he  set  forth  a  theosophy  so  simple,  so 
scriptural,  so  true,  that  it  ranks  him  among  the 
deep  religious  thinkers  of  the  age.  I  wish  I 
might  read  you  something  from  this  masterly 
paper.  I  am  glad  to  know,  however,  that  it  is 
to  be  published  in  permanent  form,  and  you  will 
read  it  for  yourselves.     I  am  now  permitted  to 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  47 

read  you  some  extracts  from  two  letters  written, 
in  view  of  this  occasion,  by  two  clergymen  who, 
like  myself,  one  before  and  one  after  me,  were 
Rectors  of  St.  James'  Church,  and  were  Mr. 
Larned's  friends  and  pastors,  —  the  Rev.  Arthur 
Brooks  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Courtney. 

My  dear  Mr.  Goodwin,  —  I  was  very  glad  to  hear 
from  your  letter  of  the  proposed  meeting  in  memory  of 
Mr.  Lamed.  I  wish  that  I  could  be  there,  and  hear 
the  various  tributes  of  those  who  have  known  and  val- 
ued him  in  so  many  different  walks  of  Hfe.  In  my 
memories  of  Chicago  his  presence  is  a  constant  one ; 
for  there  was  not  an  interest  in  life  there,  which  did 
not  look  to  him  for  encouragement  and  support.  In 
matters  of  religious  interest  you  know  how  deep  our 
sympathy  was,  and  there  has  not  been  a  year  since  I 
left  Chicago  that  I  have  not  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  at 
least  one  conversation  with  him  on  the  progress  of  re- 
ligious life  and  theological  thought ;  and  his  warm  en- 
thusiasm, wise  conservatism,  and  vigorous  appreciation 
have  always  been  a  fresh  pleasure  and  incitement.  It 
was  always  the  charming  and  rare  combination  of  sim- 
plicity and  depth  which  distinguished  his  Christian 
thought.  His  faith  was  simple  as  a  child's,  and  he 
glowed  with  enthusiasm  at  the  simplest  declaration 
from  any  man  of  the  Gospel  of  salvation.  He  knew 
the  necessity  and  true  nature  of  belief  so  fully  that 
with  the  easiest  effort  he  disregarded  all  attempts  to 
bolster  it  up  with  human  theories  and  dogmas.  But 
when  it  came  to  the  application  of  that  faith  to  the 
needs  of  men  and  the  growth  of  human  life,  his  wide 
experience,  his  large  reading,  and  his  acute  judgment 
all  showed  themselves,  and  he  revelled  in  the  many 


48  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

aspects  and  rich  colors  which  his  faith  displayed  under 
all  the  new  energies  of  the  life  around  him. 

He  loved  his  hfe  as  the  gift  of  a  Father ;  everything 
in  it  had  interest  for  him.  But  never  for  a  moment 
must  anything  in  that  Hfe  get  between  his  Father  and 
himself.  Against  any  attempt  to  rob  him  of  the  sim- 
phcity  of  his  personal  connection  with  his  God  he  was 
the  stanchest  Protestant,  whether  the  attempt  came 
from  the  Church  or  from  the  world.  Whatever  the 
Church  or  the  world  gave  him  which  told  of  his  God's 
power  and  love,  he  accepted  and  rejoiced  in  as  his 
own  rightful  inheritance.  In  that  he  was  such  a  man 
as  our  nineteenth  century  aims  at,  but  too  often  fails 
to  produce. 

It  is  impossible  that  all  those  who  knew  him  should 
not  feel  how  great  the  loss  of  him  is  in  both  public 
and  private  life. 

Yours  respectfully, 

Arthur  Brooks. 
Dec  II,  1884. 

Boston,  Dec.  12,  1884. 
To  the  Right  Reverend  the  Bishop  of  Michigan  : 

My  dear  Bishop,  —  I  hear  that  there  is  to  be  a 
meeting  on  the  i6th  inst.  in  the  Hall  of  the  Chicago 
Historical  Society  in  memory  of  the  late  Edwin  C. 
Lamed,  and  that  you  are  to  speak  of  him  on  that 
occasion  as  a  literary  man  and  as  a  Christian.  It  may 
possibly  add  to  the  interest  of  your  address  if  I  should 
give  you  a  short  personal  reminiscence  of  him,  as  I 
had  the  honor  of  succeeding  you  in  the  Rectorship  of 
St.  James'  Church. 

After  I  had  accepted  the  call,  but  was  still  discharg- 
ing my  duties  in  St.  Thomas'  Church,  New  York,  one 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


49 


day  Mr.  Larned  called  upon  me,  and  extended  to  me 
the  warmest  greeting,  assuring  me  of  his  heartiest  sup- 
port, and  giving  me  at  the  same  time  much  valuable 
information  respecting  my  new  duties,  and  the  oppor- 
tunities which  would  present  themselves  in  the  busy 
life  of  the  vigorous  community  of  Chicago.  On  my 
taking  up  my  residence  he  was  one  of  the  first  to 
stand  by  me  and  support  me  with  both  words  and 
deeds  in  my  plans  for  the  parish ;  and  on  every  occa- 
sion he  proved  himself  a  true  friend,  a  wise  counsellor, 
an  efficient  worker,  and  a  generous  giver. 

Whenever  I  suffer  myself  to  indulge  in  a  retrospect 
and  think  of  my  Sunday  ministrations  in  St.  James* 
Church,  the  two  figures  of  Edwin  C.  Larned  and 
Isaac  N.  Arnold  are  always  present  to  my  eye.  Seated 
the  one  immediately  behind  the  other,  directly  before 
me,  as  unlike  in  their  mental  as  in  their  bodily  charac- 
teristics, they  were  emphatically  my  most  thoughtful, 
critical,  attentive,  and  charitable  hearers ;  and  I  know 
that  they  alike  valued  and  strove  to  apply  to  themselves 
the  aspects  of  Divine  truth  which  it  was  my  privilege 
to  present  to  their  enlightened  understanding. 

We  are  told  in  Holy  Scriptures  that  "  the  hoary  head 
is  a  crown  of  glory  if  it  be  found  in  the  way  of  right- 
eousness ; "  and  certainly  when  that  crown  shines,  with 
its  silver  radiance,  upon  one  who  was  able  to  exemplify 
righteousness  in  so  tender  and  amiable  a  way  as  he  did, 
all  appreciate  the  beauty  of  the  symbol,  and  rejoice 
that  such  a  man  was  so  appropriately  crowned. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  with  his  legal  training, 
the  intellectual  side  of  Christianity  had  a  particular  at- 
traction for  him ;  but  I  should  be  doing  great  injustice 
to  his  memory  if  I  thereby  gave  any  one  the  impres- 
sion that  his  heart  and  feelings  were  untouched  by  it. 
4 


50  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

Not  his  will  and  understanding  only,  but  his  emotions 
and  desires,  embraced  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Revealer  of 
the  Father,  "  whom  to  know  is  life  eternal,"  and  in  the 
supreme  manifestations  of  that  love  in  the  death  upon 
the  Cross  he  found  at  once  the  way  to  pardon  and 
peace,  to  reconciliation  with  God,  and  the  highest  in- 
centive to  the  copying  of  the  example  of  self-denial  for 
the  good  of  others,  in  which  he  could  himself  become 
like  the  God  and  Father  whom  Jesus  Christ  revealed. 

Active  benevolence  in  alms  freely  bestowed  upon  all 
the  needy  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  was  one  of  his 
chief  traits,  and  many  must  hold  him  in  kindly  remem- 
brance for  generous  aid  in  time  of  need.  But  he  was 
not  contented  to  give  money  only,  —  he  gave  himself. 
It  was  to  me,  for  many  reasons,  a  moving  sight  to  see 
him  Sunday  by  Sunday  taking  his  place  in  the  school 
held  in  St.  Ansgarius'  Church,  and  conducting  a  Bible 
class  of  young  women,  —  Enghsh- speaking  Swedes. 
The  profound  knowledge,  the  ripe  experience,  the  Chris- 
tian wisdom,  which  were  eminently  his,  were  all  brought 
to  bear  with  a  gentleness  of  manner  and  a  sweet  per- 
suasiveness which  commended  them  to  his  pupils,  and 
linked  teacher  and  taught  in  a  pecuHarly  strong  way. 

My  ministry  of  two  years  was  all  too  short  for  me  to 
hope  to  do  much  that  would  be  permanent,  or  to  give 
a  chance  for  repairing  the  errors  of  inexperience ;  but  I 
should  be  willing  to  bear  more  than  the  results  of  such 
errors  and  of  more  serious  mistakes,  thinking  myself 
more  than  compensated  with  the  acquaintance,  the 
friendship,  and  the  Christian  fraternity  of  Edwin  C. 
Lamed. 

I  have  the  honor  to  remain,  my  dear  Bishop, 

Yours  very  faithfully  and  respectfully, 

F.  Courtney. 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


51 


London,  Dec.  5,  il 


Dear  Friend,  —  Your  postal  card  only  reached  me 
to-day.  I  fear  my  letter  will  be  too  late  for  your  pur- 
pose. It  is  a  pleasure  to  send  you  my  loving  tribute 
to  one  whom  I  shall  ever  remember  with  love. 

Mr.  Larned  became  my  parishioner  very  shortly  after 
I  went  to  Chicago.  He  first  won  my  heart  by  his  deep 
sympathy  for  the  laboring  classes.  I  never  knew  one 
who  realized  more  deeply  the  brotherhood  of  men  as 
children  of  one  God  and  Father.  He  loved  to  talk 
about  the  sinless  sympathy  of  our  Saviour  with  sinners. 
It  was  the  human  side  of  the  Gospel  which  called  out 
his  love  for  its  Divine  truth.  He  seemed  to  grasp  with 
the  intuition  of  a  loving  heart  all  its  lessons  of  brother- 
hood. I  do  not  think  he  was  interested  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  religion,  or  in  dogmas  as  dogmas ;  with  all 
his  scholarly  taste  and  ripe  learning  he  had  a  child's 
heart,  and  nothing  so  called  out  his  love  and  faith  as  the 
words  Jesus  taught  us,  —  "  Our  Father."  He  realized 
in  his  daily  walk  and  conversation  the  prophet's  words, 
"  What  is  it,  O  man,  the  Lord  doth  require  of  thee  but 
to  deal  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
thy  God?"  He  was  always  constant  in  his  regular 
duties  j  he  gave  without  ostentation,  liberally  and  gen- 
erously. In  a  word,  he  was,  like  Nathanael  of  old, 
"  an  Israelite  in  whom  there  was  no  guile."  I  never 
knew  one  who  despised  trickery  more  than  he,  or  who 
had  a  greater  dread  of  anything  which  could  cast  a 
stain  on  human  character. 

That  such  a  man  pitied  the  wayward  and  the  sinful, 
that  his  hand  was  ready  to  help  them  to  come  back, 
was  due  to  the  lessons  of  the  Gospel. 

I  shall  always  keep  the  memory  of  his  noble  char- 


52  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

acter  as  one  of  the  pleasantest  of  my  life.     We  are  all 
better  men  for  having  such  a  friend. 

With  kind  regards,  your  friend, 

H.  B.  Whipple,  Bishop  of  Minnesota. 

And  now,  to  conclude,  let  me  recall  to  my 
own  memory  the  look,  the  voice,  the  words, 
of  our  friend  the  last  time  I  met  him.  It  was  at 
Saratoga,  in  the  summer  of  1882.  I  happened 
to  be  there  for  a  day  or  two,  and  he  and  his 
family  stopped  there  on  their  way  to  the  Adi- 
rondacks.  We  met  on  the  crowded  veranda 
of  one  of  the  great  hotels,  and  sitting  down  we 
had  one  more  hour  of  such  converse  as  he  knew 
so  well  how  to  illuminate  when  talking  with  a 
friend.  I  can  never  forget  his  cordial,  genial, 
soulful  manner,  as  the  greetings  of  friendship 
were  exchanged,  and  as  he  spoke  of  old  days 
and  of  the  coming  years.  And  then  he  talked 
of  the  varied  themes  of  philosophy,  statesman- 
ship, religion,  sweet  charity,  that  his  well-fur- 
nished mind  delighted  to  ponder.  The  sunny 
hour  was  soon  gone.  I  looked  into  his  face  for 
the  last  time,  and  for  the  last  time  felt  the  pres- 
sure of  his  strong  and  genial  hand.  He  was 
gone ;  but  I  cherish  the  memory  of  that  meeting 
as  having  left  me  gladdened,  stronger,  better. 
So  of  all  that  I  knew  of  him,  as  I  met  him  in 
his  hospitable  home,  in  the  social  and  literary 
circle,  in  the  hour  of  prayer  in  the  house  of  God, 
in  all  the  communings  that  we  had  together, 
I,  his   sometime    pastor,  lovingly  declare   that 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


53 


in  all  my  goings  to  and  fro  in  this  world's  busy 
caravansary,  where  so  many  meet  and  part,  I 
have  met  no  one  whose  friendship  has  been  a 
richer  blessing  to  me  than  that  of  Edwin  Chan- 
ning  Larned,  whose  soul  has  now  returned  to 
the  skies. 


ADDRESS. 

BY  JUDGE  HENRY  W.  BLODGETT. 

For  nearly  forty  years  Mr.  Edwin  C.  Larned 
has  been  known  in  this  city  and  State  as  one  of 
its  most  prominent  and  talented  lawyers.  He 
came  to  Chicago  in  the  early  part  of  the  year 
1847,  ^  young  man,  unheralded  by  any  position 
or  rank  achieved  elsewhere  in  his  chosen  profes- 
sion; but  he  brought  a  well-trained,  cultivated 
mind,  vigorous  health,  and  the  ardent  hope  and 
courage  of  early  manhood.  It  was  my  good  for- 
tune to  make  his  acquaintance  very  soon  after 
his  arrival,  and  to  form  a  warm  friendship  with 
him  which  lasted  until  his  death ;  and  what  I 
say  here  is  from  my  personal  acquaintance  and 
estimate  of  him. 

Our  city  was  at  that  time  young,  its  inhabi- 
tants yet  in  a  formative  stage ;  but  the  legal  pro- 
fession was  already  represented  here  by  a  galaxy 
of  able  men  who  had  achieved  high  positions  at 
the  bar.  With  such  men  as  Butterfield,  Collins, 
Spring,  Goodrich,  Arnold,  Scammon,  Judd,  and 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  55 

Others  equally  noteworthy,  in  advance  of  him 
upon  the  ground,  he  commenced  the  struggle 
which  every  young  contestant  for  a  name  and 
place  in  the  profession  must  encounter. 

He  arrived  here  at  a  fortunate  period  in  the 
history  of  the  city  and  State.  The  dark  cloud 
of  financial  gloom  which  had  rested  on  the  State 
from  the  monetary  collapse  of  1837  had  par- 
tially broken  away.  Business  had  begun  to  re- 
vive in  Chicago,  and  a  great  tide  of  emigration 
was  pouring  into  the  Northwest,  filling  up  the 
western  prairies  with  homes  and  farms,  and  be- 
ginning the  rapid  development  of  the  resources 
of  the  country  which  is  one  of  the  wonders  of 
our  age.  The  growth  of  Chicago  was  com- 
mensurate with  that  of  the  country  which  was 
tributary  to  it,  so  that  the  young  candidate  for 
occupation  in  his  profession  was  not  obliged,  as 
in  older  communities,  to  wait  for  those  who  had 
become  established  in  business  to  die  or  retire, 
but  stood  an  equal  chance  with  the  old  prac- 
titioners for  employment  by  the  new-comers. 

Well  equipped  with  preparation  for  his  chosen 
work,  he  soon  found  opportunity  for  the  exer- 
cise of  his  abilities,  and  his  first  effort  at  the 
bar  demonstrated  that  he  was  indeed  an  acqui- 
sition to  the  profession.  Within  a  very  short 
time,  compared  with  that  now  required  for  a 
young  man  to  achieve  the  same  place,  he  took 
rank  with  the  foremost  of  the  bar,  and  from 
that  time  to  the  day  of  his  death,  if  any  one 
acquainted   with   the   standing   of  our   lawyers 


56  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

had  been  called  upon  to  name  half  a  dozen 
who  were  looked  up  to  as  leaders,  his  name 
would  undoubtedly  have  been  in  the  list. 

He  had  been  gifted  by  nature  with  much 
more  than  the  average  intellectual  powers ;  and 
what  was  better,  they  embraced  all  the  qualities 
which  are  called  into  action  in  the  career  of  a 
successful  lawyer.  He  could  patiently  and  care- 
fully possess  himself  of  all  the  complicated  facts 
bearing  upon  the  rights  of  his  client,  and  hold 
them  well  in  hand,  and  at  command  for  efficient 
use  at  the  right  time.  He  could,  and  invariably 
did,  fully  develop  the  whole  field  of  the  law 
relating  to  his  cases ;  and  with  marked  acumen 
and  discrimination  applied  to  his  facts  the  prin- 
ciples which  he  deduced  from  his  books.  He 
never  affected  deep  learning,  nor  was  there  any 
ostentation  of  authorities  in  his  arguments  and 
briefs ;  and  yet  his  statement  of  principles  was 
so  full  and  clear  as  to  make  it  evident  that  he 
had  thoughtfully  gone  over  the  whole  ground, 
and  given  the  net  result  of  his  study  rather 
than  a  mere  aggregation  of  cases  and  citations. 
He  brought  from  his  researches  the  threshed 
and  winnowed  grain,  cleared  of  the  straw  and 
chaff  which  he  found  with  it.  He  was,  withal, 
an  easy,  fluent,  and  instructive  speaker,  method- 
ical and  clear  in  the  arrangement  of  his  facts 
and  his  law,  and  with  enough  of  imagination 
and  fancy  to  enliven,  illustrate,  and  render  in- 
teresting his  discussions  of  even  the  dryest 
cases.     He  had  ready  tact  and  judgment  in  the 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 


57 


examination  of  witnesses  and  in  the  marshalling 
of  his  proofs.  In  his  arguments  to  the  court  and 
jury  he  was  frank  and  candid,  never  claiming 
any  controverted  fact  as  established  unless 
fairly  justified  in  doing  so  by  the  proof.  If  a 
fact  was  controverted,  and  there  was  room  for 
discussion,  no  one  could  be  more  ingenious  in 
reasons  for  the  support  of  his  view  and  the  en- 
forcement of  his  position ;  and  in  cases  raising 
controverted  questions  of  law  where  there  was 
a  conflict  of  authority ;  and  in  cases  where  new 
questions  were  presented  with  no  precedent  or 
authority  to  guide  or  control,  he  was  thorough, 
industrious,  and  acute,  bringing  to  the  discus- 
sion skilful  criticism  and  copious  learning. 

He  was  employed  in  very  many  important 
cases  where  great  interests  and  principles  were 
at  stake;  and  without  enumerating  his  special 
triumphs,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  was  al- 
ways equal  to  the  demands  of  the  occasion,  and 
did  his  full  part  in  establishing  those  landmarks 
of  the  law  by  which  the  rights  of  parties  are 
to-day  construed  and  determined. 

He  confined  himself  to  no  specialty  in  his 
profession,  but  was  alike  at  home  in  the  fixed 
rules  of  the  common  law  and  the  broader  and 
more  flexible  principles  of  equity.  In  tech- 
nical rules  of  practice  and  pleading  he  was 
well  versed,  and  put  his  cases  on  paper  with 
ample  skill  and  readiness. 

But  the  quality  of  his  mind  which  at  all  times 
dominated,  even  in  the  heated  contest  of  con- 


/ 


58  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

flicting  interests,  was  his  love  of  justice  and  fair 
play.  All  who  knew  him  could  tell  from  his 
manner  when  he  felt  he  was  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  case;  and  in  such  emergencies  he  con- 
tented himself  with  presenting  fairly  what  could 
justly  be  said  in  his  client's  behalf,  and  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  verdict  or  judgment  without  fault- 
finding or  complaint.  But  when  he  felt  that  he 
had  the  right  of  a  case  his  work  seemed  a  labor 
of  love,  and  all  the  latent  energies  of  his  mind 
responded  gladly  to  his  call.  His  love  of  justice 
led  him  to  espouse  generously  and  earnestly 
the  cause  of  the  poor  and  oppressed ;  and  many 
of  the  best  efforts  of  his  life  were  in  behalf  of 
clients  who  were  too  poor  to  pay  him,  and  when 
his  only  compensation  came  from  his  chivalric 
consciousness  that  he  had  helped  the  right  and 
defeated  the  wrong. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  the  arena  of  the  courts 
and  contests  at  the  bar  that  Mr.  Larned's  useful- 
ness as  a  lawyer  was  illustrated.  As  a  judicious 
friend  of  law  reform  he  always  favored  such 
amendments  of  the  law  as  made  the  course  of 
justice  more  direct  and  sure,  and  lopped  off 
worn-out  and  useless  forms  of  practice  which 
were  no  longer  vital  and  necessary  parts  of  legal 
procedure. 

His  influence  was  seen  and  felt  in  the  prepa- 
ration of  several  municipal  charters  enacted  by 
the  General  Assembly  of  this  State  for  the 
government  of  this  city.  In  the  legislation 
which  from  time  to  time  became  necessary  to 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  59 

organize  new  courts  and  expand  the  powers  of 
others  so  as  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  rapidly 
increasing  business  of  the  community;  and,  in 
fact,  whenever  a  legislative  measure  was  pro- 
posed which  had  for  its  object  the  better  se- 
curity of  individual  rights,  the  better  protection 
of  property,  the  development  of  the  resources 
of  the  country,  the  education  of  the  rising  gen- 
eration, or  the  general  good  in  any  particular, 
he  was  always  a  ready  and  efficient  worker. 

This  was  Mr.  Larned  as  a  lawyer;  but  it  is 
hardly  fair  to  his  memory  to  discuss  or  attempt 
to  describe  him  in  any  one  sphere.  As  a  lawyer, 
he  was  up  to  the  best  standard  of  his  profes- 
sion ;  but  he  was  more  than  a  lawyer.  In  the 
best  sense  of  the  word,  he  was  a  full-measured 
man  and  citizen ;  filling  all  the  places  of  politi- 
cal, social,  and  professional  life  with  rare  ability, 
and  a  conscientious  zeal,  and  an  earnest  and 
manly  purpose  which  made  his  influence  in  this 
city,  at  the  time  when  such  influence  was  most 
needed,  a  constant  force  in  behalf  of  justice  and 
good  government. 


ADDRESS. 

BY  FRANKLIN  MacVEAGH,  Esq. 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

One  could  hardly  think  any  occasion  more 
fit  than  this.  This  Society,  representative  of 
what  is  most  lasting,  of  what  is  making  valu- 
able history  and  valuable  forces  in  this  strong 
young  city,  could  not  well  do  better  than  to  ac- 
cent the  value  of  such  a  life  and  character  as 
Mr.  Larned's;  for  he  is  an  example  of  how 
one  may  harmonize  the  pursuit  of  competent 
wealth  with  the  duties  of  religion,  society,  and 
citizenship,  and  how  the  result  of  this  harmony 
must  be  success  and  happiness. 

It  is  a  striking  thing  that  even  in  Chicago, 
where  the  pursuit  of  riches  is  as  absorbing  as 
it  has  ever  become  in  any  place  or  time,  the 
moment  the  breath  is  out  of  a  man's  body  his 
mere  wealth  ceases  to  do  him  any  honor.  We 
who  spend  our  lives  in  money-getting  have  yet 
an  instinct  which  prevents  our  praising  it  ex- 
cept among  the  living.  Unless  something  else 
can  be  said  of  a  man  than  that  he  made  money, 


MEMORIAL   ADDRESS.  6l 

he  is  inevitably  buried  in  silence,  and  passes  out 
of  the  thoughts  of  the  community,  even  out  of 
the  thoughts  of  his  friends.  Memory,  like  every- 
thing else,  can  only  live  upon  wholesome  and 
sufficient  food. 

Mr.  Larned's  example  is  so  valuable  because 
he  had  the  right  measure  of  the  aims  of  life; 
and  because  he  lived  usefully,  not  only  through 
good  works  but  by  good  example.  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, we  must  have  more  and  more  men  and 
women  living  such  lives.  And  therefore,  I  take 
it,  and  not  alone  to  express  our  affection  for  Mr. 
Larned,  we  do  him  public  honor.  He  was  a 
man  to  whom  very  many  hearts  went  out ;  and 
the  first  thought  of  his  friends  is  to  relieve  their 
burden  of  sorrow  in  expressions  of  affectionate 
testimony  to  his  virtues.  But  he  was  a  man 
who  would  himself  seek  to  turn  everything  to 
public  good;  and  so  we  should  seek  to  get 
the  benefit  of  Mr.  Larned's  life  and  character. 
Let  my  few  words  then  about  this  many-sided 
and  pure  gentleman  be  with  the  double  pur- 
pose of  expressing  something  about  his  rela- 
tions to  philanthropy  and  citizenship. 

In  both  of  these  he  was  always  active.  The 
leading  thing  to  be  noticed  here  is  that  activity 
in  these  ways  is  a  stepping  outside  of  mere 
personal  integrity,  outside  of  mere  personal  re- 
finement. It  is  no  small  thing  to  be  a  man  of 
good  life.  It  is  still  more  to  be  a  man  of  good 
and  refined  life,  —  to  be,  that  is,  a  man  of  the 
higher  life,  even  though  his  example  must  be 


62  MEMORIAL    ADDRESS. 

sought  out  But  philanthropy  and  citizen- 
ship take  a  man  out  of  mere  selfishness,  how- 
ever enlightened,  and  put  him  in  a  larger  sphere. 
They  widen  not  alone  his  sphere,  however,  but 
his  character  and  life.  A  spring  of  water  in  the 
recesses  of  a  mountain  may  be  perfectly  clear 
and  wholesome,  and  to  the  infrequent  wan- 
derers among  these  seclusions  may  be  all  a 
spring  can  be.  But  to  be  widely  useful,  a 
spring  must  be  a  well  of  water  to  the  people. 
So  a  man  of  exemplary  virtues  must  stand 
among  his  people,  or  in  some  way  speak  to 
them,  to  answer  fully  the  demands  of  his  own 
nature.  This  Mr.  Larned  did.  He  did  it  so 
well  that  it  became  a  part  of  the  habitual  con- 
sciousness of  the  community  that  Edwin  C. 
Larned  thought  of  his  neighbor  as  he  ought 
to  think,  and  of  his  public  duties  as  he  ought 
to  think.  He  thus  came  to  stand  for  a  very 
great  deal  in  Chicago.  His  character  and  life 
had  made  him  a  recognized  force. 

Let  us  recall  one  memorable  incident  in  his 
life, —  his  return  to  Chicago  in  1871.  The 
great  trouble  of  Chicago  had  come  upon  her 
in  a  night.  This  light-hearted  favorite  of  for- 
tune suddenly  became  the  most  stricken  com- 
munity in  the  world.  In  her  sterner  climate 
and  upon  her  plainer  shore  she  had  dreamed 
as  little  of  misfortune  as  Pompeii  in  the  care- 
less air  of  Italy  upon  the  hopeful  shores  of  the 
Bay  of  Naples.  And  to  her,  almost  as  to 
Pompeii,  in  a  night  came  desolation.    To  a  large 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  63 

part  of  her  people  all  that  had  slowly  accumu- 
lated into  the  fact  of  home  was  obliterated  as  a 
storm  obliterates  the  tracks  in  a  desert.  Her 
misfortune  was  great;  but  the  world  took  her 
to  its  heart,  and  from  all  directions  and  from 
every  distance  came  sympathy  and  help.  In 
the  van  of  this  great  succor  Mr.  Larned  came, 
and  coming  stayed.  He  too  had  suffered 
roughly,  —  so  suffered  that  years  were  neces- 
sary to  the  repair  of  his  fortune.  But  for 
many  months  he  gave  himself  entirely  to  aid 
the  suffering  people.  He  was  a  conspicuous 
member  of  that  great  Society  of  Relief  and 
Aid  which  made  a  chapter  in  the  history  of 
Public  Charity  that  will  long  be  unsurpassed,  — 
a  great  charity  full  of  judgment, — charity  and 
wisdom  combined,  —  charity,  wisdom,  and  high 
character  combined,  —  charity,  wisdom,  high 
character,  and  faithful  labor  combined.  No 
leading  spirit  in  that  great  enterprise  should 
be  buried  without  honors. 

And  as  in  charitable  and  friendly  works,  so  he 
was  in  citizenship.  Out  of  our  wholesome  and 
helpful  public  movements,  an  important  leader 
has  gone.  He  knew,  however  any  of  us  may 
seem  to  know  it  not,  that  to  be  a  real  citizen 
and  not  merely  a  nominal  one,  to  be  a  part  of 
the  helpful  forces  of  public  affairs,  is  not  simply 
doing  one's  ordinary  duty,  but  is  living  well 
one's  life.  He  knew  the  meanings  of  citizen- 
ship and  its  associations.  He  took  a  part  of 
his    inspiration   from   a    knowledge   of  history 


64  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

and  a  feeling  for  history.  Citizenship  is  not  a 
commonplace  thing.  It  cannot  be  made  out  of 
universal  suffrage  except  as  a  rudimentary  form. 
Its  perfect  form  grows  out  of  knowledge  and  the 
wise  love  of  freedom.  He  knew,  too,  that  it  lies 
upon  a  good  man's  conscience  to  be  helpful  to 
public  life.  Certainly  a  man  here  and  there  may 
justify  to  himself  and  to  you  and  me  his  neglect 
of  public  affairs  in  a  free  country ;  but  he  must 
render  an  exceptional  account  of  himself. 

I  often  think  of  two  great  Florentines  who,  as 
nearly  as  two  men  could  be,  were  the  mediaeval 
sources  of  the  great  streams  of  modern  literature 
and  art.  One  of  these,  the  greater  of  the  two, 
had  the  sense  of  citizenship  incorporated  into 
the  very  structure  of  his  manhood.  This  was 
Dante.  He  threw  his  life  into  the  turbulent 
politics  of  Florence,  and  would  as  soon  have 
thought  of  being  a  poet  without  first  being  a 
Florentine  as  of  trying  to  live  without  food. 
Citizenship  was  one  main  stimulus  of  his  noble 
spirit.  The  other  of  the  two  was  Giotto,  who 
went  about  his  work  in  Florence  utterly  unmind- 
ful that  the  air  was  surcharged  with  the  lightning 
of  party  strife.  He  had  come  into  art  from  the 
hillside  pastures,  and  his  shepherd  nature  clung 
to  him  and  at  last  sat  with  him  upon  the  solitary 
heights  of  his  fame.  He  never  became  a  citizen. 
He  and  Dante  grew  into  a  twin  glory  of  Flor- 
ence. But  if  Giotto  was  unmoved  by  the  public 
life  around  him,  he  stands  excused  by  the  noble 
inspirations  of  his  art,  by  the  wholesomeness  of 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS.  65 

his  nature,  and  by  the  work  he  has  done  for  every 
century  since  his  own.  Such  a  man  may  well  do 
what  he  likes.  And  yet  Dante's  genius  gained 
an  inspiration,  from  its  love  of  the  State,  which 
carried  its  works  higher  far  than  even  the  glo- 
rious tower  of  Giotto. 

Mr.  Larned  understood  these  things  well.  He 
knew  that  in  being  a  good  citizen  he  was  in  good 
company.  He  knew  that  it  linked  him  through 
the  ties  of  history  to  the  fellowship  of  the  best. 
But  he  did  not  get  his  motive  here.  He  was  a 
good  citizen,  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  was  born 
in  him  as  it  was  in  Dante.  Many  of  you  read- 
ily recall  instances  out  of  which  in  part  grew 
Mr.  Larned's  fine  public  standing  and  reputation. 
For  me  it  is  enough  to  mention,  after  Mr.  Good- 
win's elaborate  and  just  address,  that  I  knew 
him  intimately  in  his  relations  to  the  Citizens' 
Association  when  in  1874  and  1875  it  was  set  to 
do  with  its  untried  strength  a  political  work  as 
large  and  difficult  as  a  volunteer  body  ever,  I 
believe,  had  to  do.  He  had  again  just  returned 
to  the  city,  this  time  to  resume  the  burden  of 
work  made  necessary  by  his  losses  in  the  Fire, 
when  he  was  summoned  to  this  new  dedication 
of  his  time  and  energy.  He  was  hard  pressed, 
but  he  could  not  and  would  not  deny  the  call. 
I  have  said  upon  another  occasion,  and  now  re- 
peat, that  the  closest  scrutiny  could  not  detect  a 
difference  of  energy  or  intensity  between  his 
work  for  himself  and  his  work  for  the  public. 
He  had  that  quality  of  true  citizenship,  —  that 
5 


66  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

quality  of  a  true  man.  No  co-laborer  of  his  in 
the  work  I  have  referred  to  will  ever  forget  the 
value  his  character  lent  to  his  service.  He  had 
become  so  fine  a  figure  in  our  community  that 
his  nominal  connection  with  the  movement  was 
itself  an  important  aid ;  but  to  this  he  added 
freely  of  his  labor,  his  wisdom,  his  knowledge. 

Thus,  with  whatever  was  most  disinterested  in 
public  affairs  or  public  charity,  with  whatever 
was  most  unselfish  in  the  activities  of  the  com- 
munity, with  whatever  we  are  most  willing  to 
honor  in  the  short  history  of  our  city,  Mr.  Lar- 
ned's  name,  if  not  actually  connected,  was,  in  the 
mind  and  sentiment  of  the  people,  habitually 
associated;  and  with  nothing  less  worthy  was 
his  name  ever  associated. 


MR.  LARNED'S  family  gave  a  portrait  of  him  to  the 
Chicago  Literary  Club,  because  he  had  always  taken 
a  strong  interest  in  that  institution  and  was  at  one  time 
President  of  it.  The  portrait  was  painted  by  Lawrence 
C.  Earle,  of  Chicago,  and  was  presented  to  the  Literary 
Club  at  the  same  time  with  one  of  Judge  Lawrence,  also 
by  Mr.  Earle.  The  evening  of  the  presentation  was  the 
twenty-third  of  March,  eighteen  hundred  and  eighty-five. 
The  address  of  presentation  was  made  by  General  A.  C. 
McClurg,  and  was  as  follows  :  — 

Mr,  President^  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Club  : 

This  Club  may  well  be  called  fortunate  in  its 
presidents,  when  two  such  men  among  them  are 
commemorated  in  one  evening  as  Judge  Law- 
rence and  Edwin  C.  Larned.  The  memory  of 
the  one  has  been  so  well  presented  that  I  am 
forced  to  wish  that  the  grateful  task  of  speak- 
ing of  the  other  had  been  committed  to  some 
more  practised  tongue.  But  you  all  knew  and 
loved  E.  C.  Larned,  and  I  am  sure  that  your 
hearts  will  say  and  feel  all  that  my  words  fail 
to  express.  It  was  my  fortune  to  see  and  to 
know  Mr.  Larned  very  early  in  my  first  ex- 
periences of  Chicago  life.  That  was  in  the 
early  days  of  the  war,  when  every  young  man 


68    PRESENTATION  OF  PORTRAIT. 

was  revolving  in  his  own  mind  and  for  him- 
self the  grave  questions :  "  Shall  I  go  into  this 
terrible  contest?  Must  I  break  up  my  plans  of 
life?  Must  I  abandon  my  chosen  pursuits  and 
give  up  my  small  but  dear  ambitions  to  go  one 
knows  not  where,  to  meet  one  knows  not  what, 
to  return  one  knows  not  when,  if  ever?"  Few 
here  to-day  realize  what  to  many  then  those 
mental  struggles  were.     The 

**  Pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war  " 

counted  for  little  then ;  but  thewords  of  older  men 
in  whose  hearts  was  burning  the  intensest  love  of 
their  country  counted  for  much.  Among  those 
men  none  spoke  with  more  ardent  patriotic  emo- 
tion, more  zealous  faith  and  confidence,  or  more 
fervid  eloquence  than  Mr.  Edwin  C.  Larned.  It 
was  for  the  younger  and  unfettered  men  to  go,  but 
it  was  for  him  to  plead  for  his  country  at  home ; 
and  in  such  labors  he  was  always  unsparing  and 
abundant.  Few  single  arms  in  the  field  could 
do  for  their  country  what  one  such  man  as  he  did 
single-handed  and  single-hearted  at  home.  Al- 
ways an  Abolitionist  when  to  be  an  Abolitionist 
was  to  court  sneers  and  contempt,  always  the 
friend  of  the  slave  and  the  lover  of  liberty,  his 
whole  heart  went  out  in  impassioned  appeals  for 
his  country,  her  government,  and  her  defenders. 
Then,  as  always,  he  was  on  the  side  of  the  right 
against  the  wrong,  and,  as  it  seemed  at  first,  of 
the  weak  against  the  strong.  None  who  knew 
the  man  then  ever  ceased  to  love  him  and  to  re- 


PRESENTATION   OF   PORTRAIT.         69 

spect  him.  Quieter  times  came ;  and  still,  in  small 
things  as  in  great,  his  heart  responded  always  to 
the  right.  Wherever  there  was  a  contest  be- 
tween right  and  wrong,  there  was  he  in  the  midst 
of  it.  Even  in  the  acrimonious  and  ungracious 
contests  of  his  small  political  Ward  Club  he 
could  always  be  found  on  the  side  of  right,  no 
matter  what  odds  were  against  him.  Here  was 
your  true  hero,  your  true  gallant  knight.  This 
was  the  side  of  his  character  which  this  Club,  as 
a  club,  saw  but  little  of.  Here  we  knew  him  as 
the  scholar,  the  Christian,  and  the  gentleman,  the 
lover  of  whatsoever  was  best  in  books  and  liter- 
ature and  art.  Here  we  heard  his  easy  conversa- 
tion ;  we  met  his  cordial  gracious  greeting,  given 
with  that  sunny  youthfulness  which  few  men 
preserve  through  the  hard  conflicts  of  an  active 
life  as  he  did.  Here  we  saw  him  preside  with 
that  easy,  quiet  dignity  which  was  so  natural  to 
him.  Throughout  a  long  life  he  was  never  a 
seeker  after  honors  for  himself;  and  I  am  told 
that  the  presidency  of  this  Club  of  his  friends 
was  an  honor  which  touched  him  deeply,  and 
to  which  he  always  referred  with  the  greatest 
pleasure.  If  he  was  proud  to  preside  over  us, 
well  may  we  drop  many  a  tear  that  his  gracious 
presence  will  be  known  no  more  forever  among  us. 
Gentle,  simple,  honest,  and  truthful,  he  seemed 
to  be  ever  following  the  injunction,  "Whatso- 
ever things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  hon- 
est, whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things 
are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso- 


JO         PRESENTATION  OF  PORTRAIT. 

ever  things  are  of  good  report,  if  there  be  any 
virtue,  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on  those 
things."  That  sentence  from  the  greatest  of 
literature  and  the  best  of  books  seems  to  me  to 
embody  the  secret  of  the  power  of  his  Hfe  and 
character.     What  more  need  be  said? 

And  so,  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the 
Literary  Club,  on  behalf  of  his  family,  I  present 
to  you  this  faithful  and  speaking  likeness  of  a 
noble  man  and  gracious  gentleman,  our  former 
friend  and  President.  Long  may  it  hang  upon 
our  walls,  inciting  us  by  his  memory  to  gentler, 
truer,  nobler  speech  and  acts  and  lives ! 

Dr.  Charles  G.  Smith,  the  President  of  the  Club, 
responded  as  follows  :  — 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen^: 

It  is  my  pleasant  duty  to-night  to  express  the 
great  gratification  which  the  members  of  this 
Club  feel  at  the  reception  of  these  faithful  and 
finished  portraits,  and  to  express  to  the  donors 
the  grateful  thanks  of  our  members.  It  is  a 
matter  of  congratulation  that  art  as  well  as  liter- 
ature finds  a  home  with  us  here,  and  that  these 
paintings  are  the  work  of  one  of  our  most  es- 
teemed members.  I  may  say  in  passing,  too, 
that  there  are  other  works  of  art  here,  —  some 
sculptures  by  one  of  our  members  which  are 
worthy  of  the  attention  of  our  guests  and  the 
Club.  I  can  add  nothing  to  the  fitting  tribute 
which  has  been  paid  to  the  memory  of  our 
friends.     We  all  feel  how  true   are  the  words 


PRESENTATION    OF   PORTRAIT.         71 

that  have  been  spoken.  The  sweet  remem- 
brance of  the  just  shall  survive  when  they  sleep 
in  dust.  As  we  look  upon  these  faces  we  shall 
think  often  of  the  times  past,  when  their  wisdom 
guided  our  councils  and  their  wit  enlivened  our 
meetings.  We  have  noticed  lately  that  the  tower 
on  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  is  higher  than  that 
of  any  church,  higher  than  that  on  any  educa- 
tional institution  in  all  this  great  city.  I  hope  it 
is  not  a  type  of  the  future  of  Chicago.  I  hope, 
in  the  good  time  coming,  that  the  Chicago  Pub- 
lic Library  will  have  a  building  of  its  own,  com- 
mensurate with  its  needs  and  with  the  needs  of 
Chicago.  I  hope  that  the  Literary  Club,  in  a 
home  of  its  own,  well  filled  with  pictures  and 
books,  will  show  by  its  influence  that  there  is 
something  grander  and  better  in  a  great  city 
than  mere  material  prosperity. 


-^sMfe 


MR.  LARNED'S  argument  on  the  trial  of  Joseph 
Stout  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  is  appended, 
as  at  once  an  example  of  his  manner  of  speaking  upon 
great  public  questions  which  interested  him  deeply,  and 
of  his  legal  ability  in  presenting  the  case  of  his  client  to 
a  jury. 

ARGUMENT 

OF    E.    C.    LARNEDf  Esq., 
Counsel  for  the  Defence, 

On  the  Trial  of  Joseph  Stout,  Indicted  for  Rescuing 
A  Fugitive  Slave  from  the  United  States  Deputy 
Marshal,  at  Ottawa,  III.,  Oct.  20,  1859.  Deliv- 
ered IN  the  United  States  District  Court  for 
THE  Northern  District  of  Illinois,  March  12  and 
13,  i860. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Jury : 

It  was  a  fitting  exordium  to  such  a  prosecution  as 
this,  for  the  Attorney  of  the  United  States  to  attack 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  seek  to  explain 
away  and  destroy  the  full  meaning  and  effect  of  those 
principles  which  He  at  the  foundation  of  that  liberty 
which  is  the  most  precious  birthright  of  every  American 
citizen. 

Nor  was  it  unnatural,  gentlemen,  that  at  the  same  time 
he  should  seek  to  enlist  in  support  of  his  case  those 


74         ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE. 

principles  of  natural  justice  and  right  by  which,  as  the 
highest  in  our  nature,  men  are  ever  guided  in  forming 
their  judgment  of  human  action ;  for  it  is  not  a  pleas- 
ing duty  for  any  man  to  ask  a  jury  to  convict  a  man 
as  a  criminal  for  an  act  which  has  no  guilt  save  that 
which  is  found  on  the  pages  of  the  statute  book. 

It  was  not  strange,  gentlemen,  that  he  should  bring 
before  you  the  names  of  Webster  and  Clay,  of  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson,  and  seek  to  borrow  from  the 
reflected  lustre  of  these  great  and  illustrious  men 
something  to  lighten  the  character  and  take  from  the 
odium  of  this  prosecution.  But  yet,  gentlemen,  it  is 
in  vain  for  him  to  travel  out  of  the  record  to  gain  any 
support  for  the  cause  which  he  advocates. 

Only  in  the  letter  of  the  statute,  only  by  the  force 
of  the  enactmentSvof  a  law  made  by  men,  and  binding 
upon  courts  and  juries,  and  not  by  the  force  of  any  con- 
siderations of  what  is  just  and  right  under  the  higher 
and  everlasting  laws  which  are  written  by  God  in  the 
conscience  and  moral  nature  of  man,  can  he  find  any 
sanction  for  a  verdict  against  the  defendant  at  the  bar. 

Gentlemen,  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  in  the  Republic  of  the  United  States,  in  the 
free  State  of  Illinois,  a  man  of  unblemished  character, 
a  man  known  and  beloved  in  a  city  which  his  intelli- 
gent industry  has  aided  to  build  up,  and  his  high  moral 
qualities  have  contributed  to  adorn,  sits  at  the  felons' 
bar  of  this  cburt,  and  is  on  trial  as  a  criminal. 

And  the  offence  —  the  crime  alleged  against  him, 
and  for  which  he  is  thus  arraigned  —  is  that  he  has 
aided  a  fellow-man  in  his  effort  to  obtain  his  liberty. 
It  is  charged  to  be  a  crime  in  that  Republic  whose 
foundations  were  laid  in  those  great  principles  of  liberty, 
equality,  and  the  rights  of  man,  of  which  the  Declara- 


ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE. 


75 


tion  of  American  Independence  is  the  fullest  and  no- 
blest national  expression,  to  aid  a  fellow-man  in  seeking 
to  secure  for  himself  that  blessed  boon  of  liberty  to 
which  every  human  being  is  by  virtue  of  his  manhood 
entitled. 

Regarded  outside  of  and  independent  of  the  statute 
book,  viewed  by  the  light  of  'those  principles  of  con- 
science,—  that  higher  law  of  universal  right  and  jus- 
tice, which,  however  it  may  be  scoffed  at  and  despised, 
every  true  man  reverences  as  far  above  all  mere  human 
enactments,  —  the  act  which  is  charged  against  the  de- 
fendant would  be  approved  as  a  virtue,  not  condemned 
as  a  crime. 

For  surely  to  extend  a  helping  hand  to  the  oppressed, 
to  aid  the  friendless  and  despised  outcasts  of  human 
society,  to  give  the  word  of  sympathy  and  the  hand  of 
kindness  to  the  forsaken,  forlorn,  friendless  slave  on  his 
way  to  liberty,  would  be  an  act  of  humanity  and  of 
Christian  charity  which  would  bespeak  a  generous  and 
noble  nature,  and  commend  itself  to  the  best  and 
holiest  instincts  of  the  human  heart. 

But  it  is  said  by  the  Attorney  for  the  Government 
that  this  man  was  a  slave,  and  therefore  had  no  right 
to  his  liberty,  and  that  the  acts  of  those  who  aided 
him  to  secure  it  were  no  better  than  highway  robbery  ; 
and  he  has  summoned  to  his  aid  in  this  argument  the 
compromises  of  the  Constitution,  the  compacts  of  the 
Ordinance  of  1 787,  and  the  laws  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment enacted  (as  he  claims)  for  the  fulfilment  of  these 
compromises  and  compacts. 

Gentlemen,  did  the  idea  occur  to  you  when  the 
learned  gendeman  was  discoursing  upon  those  com- 
promises and  compacts,  in  behalf  of  which  he  sought 
to  awaken  your  patriotism  and  love  of  the  Union,  that 


76        ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

the  slave  is  no  party  to  your  constitutions  or  your 
compacts,  that  he  has  never  given  his  assent  to  your 
ordinances  or  your  legislation  ? 

Did  it  occur  to  you,  when  the  learned  counsellor  was 
discoursing  upon  the  sacredness  and  antiquity  of  the 
great  right  of  property,  and  invoking  your  sense  of 
justice  and  right  against  the  violation  of  this  right, 
that  there  was  a  right  older  and  more  sacred  than  the 
right  of  a  master  to  a  slave, — the  right  of  the  slave 
to  himselfi 

The  right  of  a  master  to  a  slave  is  the  right  of 
power.  It  is  the  right  of  the  strong  over  the  weak. 
It  is  might,  not  right. 

The  right  of  a  man  to  himself  is  by  a  deed  of  gift 
from  the  great  God  who  created  him,  and  of  which  no 
human  power  or  authority  can  rightfully  deprive  him. 

It  is  written  by  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  on  the 
brow  of  every  human  being  whom  he  has  formed  in 
his  own  image,  into  whom  he  has  breathed  an  im- 
mortal soul,  and  who,  by  virtue  of  these  divine  pre- 
rogatives, has  become  a  man. 

There  is  no  right  of  property  as  ancient  as  this,  for 
it  dates  back  to  the  first  moment  of  creation.  There 
is  none  so  sacred,  for  it  is  conferred  by  Him  who  is 
the  Maker  of  all  things,  and  to  whom  all  belong. 

It  is  said  that  the  negro  is  a  degraded  being,  that 
he  belongs  to  an  inferior  race ;  and  his  physical  and 
mental  inferiority  have  been  the  subject  here  of  ridi- 
cule and  contempt.  Grant  that  it  is  so;  grant  that 
he  is  weak,  abject,  miserable,  —  that  he  is  wanting  in 
every  quality  to  excite  your  admiration  or  enlist  your 
interest  or  sympathy.  In  what  code  of  ethics,  in  what 
system  of  philosophy,  in  what  form  of  religion,  does  the 
learned  gentleman  find  that  weakness,  ignorance,  and 


ARGUMENT  IN  A  SLAVE  CASE.    77 

destitution  furnish  an  excuse  for  oppression  and  injus- 
tice ?  If  a  man  is  deserted,  forsaken,  without  home,  for- 
tune, or  friends,  weak  and  miserable,  having  no  power 
to  defend  himself  and  nothing  to  reward  the  defence  of 
others,  does  not  this  very  weakness  become,  in  every 
noble  nature,  the  most  eloquent  appeal  against  injustice 
and  outrage  ? 

I  care  not  how  degraded  the  African  race  may  have 
become  through  the  long  centuries  of  dark  and  cruel 
bondage  in  which  this  unhappy  people  have  been  made 
the  victims  of  oppression.  I  ask  of  the  learned  gentle- 
man who  has  sought  so  eagerly  to  excite  the  bitterest 
prejudices  of  caste  and  race  against  them,  and  to  pic- 
ture them  before  you  in  so  debased  and  degraded  an 
aspect  as  to  turn  away  your  sympathy  and  deaden  your 
sensibilities  toward  them,  —  I  ask  the  gentleman  to 
answer  me  but  one  solitary  proposition :  Is  the  negro 
a  man  ?  If  he  is  not  a  man,  —  if  he  is  a  mere  animal 
like  a  horse  or  an  ox,  if  no  human  heart  beats  in  his 
bosom,  if  he  has  no  fears  or  hopes  or  affections,  if  he 
has  no  feeling  of  love  or  hate,  no  conscience  to  be 
touched  with  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  —  then  the 
gentleman  is  right  and  I  am  wrong  in  my  reasoning. 

But  if  he  be  a  man,  —  if  he  has  a  human  nature,  if 
he  was  created  by  the  same  divine  hand  and  after  the 
same  divine  image  in  which  you  and  I  were  formed,  — 
then  I  read,  in  that  Book  of  books  from  which  I  have 
learned  the  lessons  of  duty  and  the  principles  of  my 
moral  life,  that  God  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  that 
dwell  upon  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  —  that  we  are 
all  the  children  of  one  Father,  and  that  all  men  are 
brethren.  Are  we  not  all  sharers  of  one  common 
humanity?  Are  we  not  all  to  be  redeemed  by  the 
same  infinite  Saviour,  and  heirs  of  the  same  glorious 


TTNIVERSlTr 


78         ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

immortality?  If  so,  then  is  every  man,  be  his  skin 
white  or  black,  whatever  his  country,  his  birthplace,  or 
his  condition,  my  brother,  —  brother  not  in  equality  of 
condition  or  capacity,  but  a  brother  in  the  great  human 
family  of  God ;  and  by  virtue  of  his  manhood,  in  the 
right  of  that  divine  humanity  which  is  before  all  law 
and  above  all  law,  do  I  declare  that  he  has  the  right 
to  himself,  —  that  this  right  to  himself  is  the  highest 
of  all  rights,  of  which  no  constitutions,  no  compacts, 
no  compromises,  no  legislation,  can  rightfully  deprive 
him.  There  is,  there  can  be,  in  the  nature  of  things 
no  right  which  can  be  superior  to  the  right  of  a  man 
to  himself. 

I  maintain,  then,  that  when  a  man  held  as  a  slave 
strikes  out  for  freedom,  when  he  has  the  courage  and 
the  manliness  to  vindicate  for  himself  the  great  right 
of  his  humanity,  that  he  is  committing  no  wrong  upon 
his  master,  no  wrong  upon  any  one ;  for  his  right  to 
himself  as  far  transcends  that  of  his  master  to  him 
as  the  laws  of  God  transcend  the  laws  of  man.  He  has 
the  right  to  his  freedom  if  he  can  obtain  it  without 
violence  and  blood,  without  destroying  the  lives  or 
liberties  of  others.  He  has  the  right  to  flee  from 
bondage  and  turn  his  steps  to  a  land  of  liberty.  Nay, 
not  only  has  he  the  right,  but  if  he  be  not  the  brutal, 
degraded  being  which  he  has  been  pictured  here,  if  he 
have  within  him  the  first  faint  conception  of  what  it  is 
to  be  a  slave  and  what  it  is  to  be  free,  he  will  do  it ; 
he  will  never  surrender  himself  to  life-long  slavery 
without  a  struggle  to  escape. 

And  in  that  struggle  for  liberty  he  will  have  the 
sympathy  of  every  man  who  has  a  heart  to  feel.  Why, 
the  whole  history  of  man  through  all  ages  is  a  history 
of  struggles  for  liberty,  —  a  history  written  in  tears  and 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.         79 

blood,  a  history  out  of  which  have  risen  the  heroes  of 
our  race.  And  do  those  records  of  heroism  and  self- 
sacrifice  in  the  cause  of  liberty  which  have  enlisted 
our  admiration  and  shed  such  glory  over  the  history  of 
man,  depend  for  their  power  to  move  us  upon  the 
question  whether  the  actors  in  those  great  struggles 
had  a  skin  whiter  or  darker  than  our  own?  Is  there 
nothing  to  move  our  sympathies,  to  thrill  us  with  in- 
tensest  interest,  to  kindle  our  admiration  in  the  nar- 
rative of  the  struggles  and  hardships  and  sacrifices 
endured  by  these  poor,  despised,  hunted  outcasts,  in 
their  flight  from  slavery  to  liberty  ? 

I  tell  you,  gentlemen,  much  as  we  plume  ourselves 
upon  the  superiority  of  the  white  race,  and  flippantly 
as  we  talk  of  the  inferiority  of  the  colored  race  in 
America,  that  if  the  secret  history  of  the  age  we  now 
live  in  could  be  truly  written,  some  of  its  grandest 
heroism,  some  of  its  noblest  examples  of  devotion, 
fidelity,  fortitude,  and  self-sacrifice,  would  be  found  in 
the  narratives  of  men  belonging  to  that  oppressed 
people,  who  have  wrought  out  for  themselves,  by  their 
own  fearless  courage  and  unyielding  resolution,  a 
deliverance  out  of  slavery  into  the  life  and  light  of 
liberty. 

Have  you  read  any  of  those  narratives  ?  If  not,  you 
know  not  the  strength  and  intensity  of  the  longing  of 
the  human  heart  for  liberty.  You  know  not  what  a 
man  will  do  and  dare  to  secure  it.  Why,  there  is  no 
form  of  human  suffering  which  these  men  have  not 
braved  for  its  sake.  They  have  encountered  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  forest ;  they  have  wandered  weeks  and 
months  alone  in  desert  places,  hiding  in  dens  and 
caves,  famished  with  hunger,  their  pathway  tracked 
with   their  blood.     They  have   lain   in   the  holds   of 


8o         ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

ships,  without  food  or  drink,  for  days,  in  darkness  and 
solitude,  with  scarce  air  to  breathe ;  they  have  clung 
to  the  rudder-chains  of  ships,  and  sat  through  the 
weary  days  and  dark  nights,  with  the  waves  beating 
over  them,  clinging  for  life  and  liberty,  —  preferring 
death  to  slavery.  Romance  can  depict  nothing  of 
the  heroic  in  human  courage,  or  of  the  terrible  in 
human  suffering,  which  the  reality  of  these  narratives 
does  not  transcend. 

Tell  me  that  the  best  and  warmest  impulses  of  good 
men  are  not  moved  toward  these  struggling  heroes  of 
a  down-trodden  race  !  Tell  me  that  the  charity  and 
love  which  stretch  out  the  hand  of  sympathy  to  the 
needy  and  suffering  has  its  source  in  the  color  of  a 
man's  skin  !  No,  gentlemen ;  you  may  pass  laws,  you 
may  impose  penalties,  you  may  fine  and  imprison  and 
hang  men,  if  you  please ;  but  until  you  blot  out  of 
the  human  heart  everything  that  is  generous,  kind,  and 
noble,  you  can  never  make  men  feel  that  it  is  a  crime 
to  give  a  hand  of  kindness  and  a  word  of  encourage- 
ment to  the  poor  hunted  victim  of  slavery  on  his  way 
to  liberty. 

Why,  we  are  told  that  the  escape  of  a  slave  is  a  rob- 
bery of  the  master,  and  that  we  put  ourselves  on  a 
level  with  thieves  and  plunderers  in  aiding  him  in  his 
flight.  The  robber  takes  the  property  which  belongs 
to  another,  and  appropriates  it  to  his  own  profit.  If 
the  slave  has  a  right  to  himself  which  he  has  never 
surrendered,  it  is  clearly  no  wrong  in  him  to  flee  from 
slavery  to  liberty ;  and  if  not,  then  to  aid,  comfort,  and 
assist  one  who  is  doing  right,  can  by  no  sophistry  of 
evil  be  proven  to  be  wrong. 

Why,  it  is  only  within  the  present  century  that  the 
Dey  of  Algiers  held  numbers  of  white  men  as  slaves. 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.         8 1 

These  men  were  the  lawful  spoils  of  war,  —  they  were 
his  slaves  by  the  same  law  of  force  by  which  the  Afri- 
can race  is  held  in  bondage  to-day  in  America.  You 
have  read  of  some  of  the  heroic  attempts  of  some  of 
those  white  captives  to  slavery  to  escape  from  bondage. 
You  have  been  thrilled  with  admiration  at  their  daring, 
and  touched  with  sympathy  by  the  story  of  their  suifer- 
ings.  You  remember  the  efforts  which  were  made  by 
brave  and  noble  men  to  aid  them  to  escape.  Did  it 
ever  occur  to  you,  as  you  hngered  with  intensest  in- 
terest over  the  narratives  of  the  escape  of  these  men, 
that  they,  and  those  who  aided  them,  were  committing 
highway  robbery  on  the  Dey  of  Algiers? 

Does  the  fact  that  the  color  of  these  men's  skins 
was  whiter  than  that  of  those  held  in  bondage  in 
America,  alter  the  principle?  Do  questions  of  mor- 
als, the  laws  of  conscience  and  of  right,  change  accord- 
ing to  the  changing  hues  of  the  human  complexion  ? 
If  so,  how  would  the  argument  stand  if  the  propo- 
sition were  carried  into  effect,  which  has  been  re- 
peatedly discussed  in  several  of  the  Southern  States,  of 
turning  the  entire  poor  white  population  into  slaves  ? 

I  know,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  it  is  the  fashion 
of  the  day,  and  especially  with  those  who  represent  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  to  sneer  at  libert}', 
to  ridicule  those  great  rights  of  man  which  have  been 
won  from  tyranny  by  the  struggles  of  brave  and  true 
men  through  the  centuries  of  the  past,  and  especially 
to  cast  the  most  contemptuous  obloquy  upon  those 
who  contend  earnestly  for  the  freedom,  humanity,  and 
just  rights  of  men  whose  skin  is  darker  than  our  own. 

But  I  have  learned  from  the  study  of  history  the 
lesson  that  the  first   step   to  the  loss  of  a  people's 
liberties  is  to  cease  to  prize  them,  and  that  the  first 
6 


82         ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

effort  of  those  who  desire  to  steal  away  a  people's 
rights  is  to  infuse  into  the  popular  mind  an  indiffer- 
ence to  all  questions  of  right  and  freedom ;  to  bring 
over  it  that  cold  and  hard  selfishness  which  regards 
nothing  as  important  which  does  not  affect  the  special 
personal  comfort  and  welfare  of  the  individual;  to 
class  as  enthusiasts  and  fanatics  all  men  who  have 
faith  in  principle,  in  duty,  in  religion,  —  all  men  who 
believe  that  liberty,  humanity,  the  rights  of  man,  are 
great  realities,  and  not  unmeaning  words.  But,  gentle- 
men, I  care  not  for  the  ridicule  or  the  reproach  of  men 
like  these.  Call  me  by  what  name  they  please,  —  fa- 
natic, enthusiast,  or  that  other  word  which  seems  to 
them  to  comprehend  the  sum  total  of  human  deprav- 
ity, abolitionist,  —  I  will,  whenever  and  wherever  the 
occasion  offers,  stand  up  and  vindicate  the  great 
rights  of  humanity,  the  right  of  a  man  to  himself,  the 
"  inalienable  right "  of  every  man  created  in  the  image 
of  God,  with  which  he  was  "  endowed  by  his  Creator," 
and  which  is  as  indestructible  as  that  nature  itself,  to 
"  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

I  maintain  therefore,  gentlemen,  that  the  act  charged 
here  as  a  crime,  for  which  this  defendant  is  arraigned 
before  you,  would,  independent  of  any  statutory  prohi- 
bition, approve  itself  ta  every  true  man  as  humane, 
generous,  and  worthy  of  all  commendation. 

But  I  am  well  aware,  gentlemen,  that  it  is  not  your 
privilege  in  this  place,  and  before  this  tribunal,  to  judge 
this  man's  action  by  those  higher  laws  of  conscience 
which  alone  give  to  human  conduct  its  true  character. 

This  defendant  is  indicted  here  for  a  violation  of  a 
statute  of  the  United  States,  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act ; 
and  in  this  presence  the  statute  book  is  the  supreme 
law  for  all  of  us. 


ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE.        8^ 

That  act,  odious  and  offensive  as  it  is  in  the  estima- 
tion of  many  good  men,  is  the  law  for  this  court  and 
for  this  case.  It  has  been  pronounced  to  be  constitu- 
tional by  that  tribunal  whose  decision  is  obligatory  upon 
this  court ;  and  although,  were  it  a  new  question  or  open 
for  discussion,  I  think  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  suggest 
strong  reasons  to  the  contrary,  yet  such  a  discussion 
would  be  out  of  place  and  to  no  purpose  at  this  time  ; 
and  I  concede,  therefore,  at  the  outset,  the  vahdity  of 
this  statute  and  its  binding  obligation  upon  all  citizens. 

But  while  I  have  no  right  in  this  presence  to  ques- 
tion the  constitutionality  or  binding  obligation  of  this 
law,  I  have  the  right,  and  it  is  my  duty,  to  call  your 
attention  to  those  provisions  of  this  law  which  make  it 
dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  freemen ;  for  it  is  upon 
the  existence  of  these  very  dangers  that  I  shall  base  a 
material  portion  of  the  defence  in  this  case.  I  shall 
demonstrate  to  your  entire  satisfaction,  before  I  close, 
that  it  is  to  the  exercise  of  those  undoubted  rights  and 
to  the  discharge  of  those  unquestionable  duties  which 
the  dangers  I  have  referred  to  impose  upon  every  citi- 
zen, that  the  great  part  of  all  the  acts  committed  by 
this  defendant,  which  appear  in  evidence  in  this  cause, 
is  justly  to  be  referred. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1850  is  based  upon,  and 
purports  to  be,  a  carrying  into  execution  of  the  second 
section  of  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  which  is  as  follows  :  — 

"3.  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State 
under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in 
consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  dis- 
charged from  such  service  or  labor;  but  shall  be  deliv- 
ered upon  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or 
labor  may  be  due." 


84   .     ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE. 

It  was  asserted  by  the  learned  Attorney  for  the 
United  States,  that  this  article  formed  one  of  the  com- 
promises of  the  Constitution,  without  which  it  never 
could  have  been  adopted ;  and  this  remark  was  made 
the  basis  of  some  very  eloquent  appeals  to  your  patriot- 
ism and  love  of  the  Union.  I  am  well  aware  that  this 
remark  has  been  made  before,  and  is  supported  by  the 
dicta  of  several  learned  judges ;  but  it  has  been  made 
in  a  general  way,  and  in  connection  with  the  whole 
subject  of  slavery  in  its  relations  to  the  Constitution, 
and  it  is  so  untrue  to  the  recorded  facts  of  history, 
about  which  there  can  be  no  dispute,  that  I  think  it 
proper  to  give  a  few  moments  to  its  consideration.  I 
deny  that  this  provision  in  this  article  for  the  right  of 
reclamation  of  slaves  throughout  the  States  ever  was 
one  of  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution,  or  that  it 
constituted  any  subject  of  contention  or  difference  in 
the  Convention  that  framed  that  instrument.  On  the 
contrary,  the  article  in  question  was  adopted  unani- 
mously, and  without  eliciting  any  debate  or  dissenting 
opinion  in  regard  to  it. 

The  great  subjects  of  difference  which  divided  the 
Convention,  and  which  resulted  in  what  are  so  often 
called  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution,  were 
three  :  — 

1.  The  question  of  difference  between  the  power 
of  the  large  and  small  States  in  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, which  was  compromised  by  giving  to  the  small 
States  an  equality  in  one  branch  of  the  Legislature, 
while  the  large  States  were  represented  in  the  other 
according  to  their  population. 

2.  The  demand  of  the  States  where  slaves  formed 
a  large  element  in  the  population,  to  have  the  popu- 
lation on  which  the  representation  was  to  be  based 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.        85 

include  the  slaves,  which  was  resisted  by  the  other  States 
as  anti- Republican  and  unequal,  and  was  compromised 
by  yielding  to  the  slave  States  the  right  to  include  three 
fifths  of  the  slaves  in  estimating  the  number  of  the  pop- 
ulation on  which  the  representation  should  be  based. 

3.  The  third  was  the  foreign  slave-trade,  which  was 
repugnant  to  the  conscience  and  sense  of  right  of 
many  of  the  delegates,  but  was  warmly  insisted  upon 
by  several  of  the  Southern  States. 

This  was  compromised  by  agreeing,  upon  a  specific 
year,  the  year  1808,  before  which  time  no  authority  to 
restrict  the  slave  trade  should  be  exercised,  but  giving 
the  power  to  restrict  it  subsequently. 

These  were  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution. 
The  subject  of  the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves  was  not 
a  matter  which  even  excited  the  attention  of  the  Con- 
vention until  nearly  the  close  of  their  labors. 

The  Convention  commenced  its  labors  in  the  latter 
part  of  May,  1787,  and  concluded  them  early  in  Sep- 
tember of  the  same  year. 

In  all  of  the  seven  different  draughts  of  a  plan  of  a 
Constitution,  several  of  which  were  submitted  by  South- 
em  men,  —  one  by  Mr.  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina, 
and  one  by  Edmund  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  —  there 
was  no  provision  whatever  in  regard  to  the  surrender 
of  fugitive  slaves. 

On  the  6th  of  August,  1787,  the  Committee  reported 
the  finished  draught  of  the  Constitution,  which  contained 
no  provision  on  the  subject.  It  was  not  until  the  28th 
day  of  August,  a  short  time  before  the  close  of  the  Con- 
vention, that  Mr.  Butler  and  Mr.  Pinckney,  of  South 
Carolina,  moved  as  an  amendment  to  the  article  re- 
specting fugitives  from  justice,  to  require  fugitive  slaves 
to  be  delivered  up  like  criminals. 


86    ARGUMENT  IN  A  SLAVE  CASE. 

Mr.  Wilson,  of  Pennsylvania,  objected  to  this  on  the 
ground  that  it  would  oblige  the  Executive  of  the  State 
to  do  it  at  the  public  expense ;  and  Mr.  Sherman,  of 
Connecticut,  upon  the  ground  "  that  there  was  ?io  more 
propriety  in  the  public  seizing  and  surrendering  a  slave 
or  servant  than  a  horse P 

Mr.  Butler  then  withdrew  his  proposition  for  the  pur- 
pose of  preparing  a  special  article  that  should  be  free 
from  objection.    (See  Madison  Papers,  pp.  1447-1448.) 

On  the  29th  of  August  the  article,  as  it  now 
stands,  was  offered  by  Mr.  Butler  and  adopted  with- 
out objection. 

The  whole  idea  that  it  was  any  matter  of  difference 
or  dispute,  or  was  the  subject  of  any  compromise,  or 
formed  any  barrier  to  the  formation  of  the  Constitution, 
is  utterly  at  variance  with  this  plain  and  undeniable 
statement  of  facts. 

Now,  I  have  never  denied  and  will  never  deny 
the  obligation  of  any  provision  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  But  what  is  the  obvious  mean- 
ing and  intention  of  the  clause  in  question?  What 
is  the  compact  into  which  our  fathers  entered  and 
by  which  we  are  bound  ?  It  was  this :  that  the  right 
of  property  in  slaves  should  not  be  destroyed  by  the 
legislation  of  the  States,  nor  lost  by  the  escape  of  the 
slave  into  States  where  slavery  was  not  recognized 
as  lawful. 

At  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  the 
Somerset  case  had  been  decided  in  England ;  and  it 
had  become  one  of  the  settled,  established  principles  of 
the  common  law  of  that  country,  as  expounded  by  its 
highest  courts,  that  slavery  had  no  foundation  in  the 
law  of  nature  or  the  law  of  nations,  —  that  it  was  de- 
pendent wholly  for  its  existence  upon  local,  municipal 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.         Sj 

regulations,  having  no  force  outside  of  the  territorial 
limits  of  the  jurisdiction  where  they  were  established. 
Now,  if  this  clause  had  not  been  inserted,  what  would 
have  been  the  result  ?  Why,  the  moment  a  slave  en- 
tered into  a  free  State,  he  would  have  been  a  free  man. 
But  to  prevent  such  a  result  as  this,  it  was  provided  by 
this  article  of  the  compact  that  the  right  in  slave  prop- 
erty should  not  thus  be  destroyed.  It  was  permitted  to 
the  slaveholder  to  set  up  and  establish,  in  the  free  States, 
his  right  of  property  in  escaped  slaves,  and  obtain  their 
reclamation  under  the  law, — aright  which,  without  this 
express  provision,  he  could  never  have  enjoyed. 

That  right  was  secured  to  him  by  the  Constitution  j 
but  it  was  ever  intended  to  give  to  the  owner  of  slave 
property  rights  and  privileges  in  the  establishment  of 
tide  to,  and  obtaining  possession  of,  such  property 
under  the  law,  which  was  not  given  with  reference  to 
any  other  species  of  property  ?  Did  they  mean,  in  be- 
half of  this  property  in  man,  —  which  was  regarded  as 
so  contrary  to  all  natural  law,  so  opposed  to  the  con- 
science and  moral  sense  of  mankind,  that  the  great 
men  who  framed  the  Constitution  refused  to  allow  the 
word  "  slave  "  to  appear  in  that  instrument,  which  they 
regarded  as  a  great  charter  of  liberty,  —  to  overthrow 
all  the  long-established  modes  of  procedure,  the  laws 
of  evidence  and  modes  of  trial  which  the  common 
law  of  the  country  had  for  ages  provided  for  testing 
questions  of  personal  right  and  conflicting  claims  of 
property  ? 

Now,  why  is  this  Fugitive  Slave  Law  so  objectionable 
in  the  estimation  of  a  very  large  portion  of  the  best 
and  most  intelligent  of  our  citizens?  Is  it  because 
they  are  unwilling  to  carry  out  in  good  faith  this 
compact  of  the  Constitution  ?     Not  at  all.    They  are 


88         ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

opposed  to  slavery ;  but  they  regard  it  as  an  institution 
which  is  practically  beyond  their  control,  and  they  feel 
the  obligation  of  the  Constitution  as  imperative. 

No,  gentlemen,  it  is  because  they  regard  the  provi- 
sions of  this  law  as  most  dangerous  to  the  rights  of  free- 
men. It  is  because  this  law  violates  all  those  great 
safeguards  for  the  security  of  personal  liberty,  which 
they  regard  as  no  less  sacred  and  important  than  the 
Constitution  itself.  It  is  because  this  law  permits  a 
subordinate,  inferior  class  of  magistrates,  whose  only 
right  to  act  at  all  is  based  upon  the  shallow  pretence 
that  they  do  not  act  as  judges,  to  give  a  judgment 
which  decides  finally  and  forever  the  great  question  of 
man's  Hberty.  It  is  because  that  highest  of  all  human 
rights,  the  right  of  a  man  to  himself,  is  allowed  to  be 
taken  away,  and  a  man  made  a  slave  upon  ex  parte 
evidence,  given  in  a  summary  way,  without  even  the 
sanction  of  a  court  or  judicial  officer.  It  is  because 
the  right  of  trial  by  jury  —  that  greatest  of  all  the 
securities  of  life,  liberty,  and  property  of  the  citizen  — 
is  denied  under  this  law. 

Is  not  this  a  most  just  cause  of  dissatisfaction  With 
this  law? 

If  a  Southern  man  claims  a  bale  of  cotton  found  in 
the  State  of  Illinois  to  be  his,  and  his  claim  is  con- 
tested, can  he  take  and  carry  it  away?  How,  alone, 
can  he  obtain  the  right  of  the  possession  of  the  dis- 
puted property?  Only  by  the  judgment  of  twelve 
men, —  sworn  as  you  have  been  sworn  to  determine  the 
conflicting  claims  of  the  parties  according  to  the  laws 
of  the  land  and  the  sworn  testimony  in  the  case,  given 
under  all  the  forms  and  sanctions  of  a  court  of  law. 
Now,  is  not  the  question  of  a  man's  freedom  of  more 
value  than  a  bale  of  cotton  ? 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.         89 

Is  the  greatest  of  all  human  rights  to  be  passed  upon, 
without  judge  or  jury,  by  an  inferior  magistrate  who 
could  not  lawfully  decide  upon  the  right  of  property 
in  a  dog  or  an  ox? 

It  is  this  great  outrage  upon  what  is  regarded  as  the 
most  important  of  all  the  securities  for  the  liberty  of 
the  citizen,  which  constitutes  the  principal  objection 
to  its  enforcement.  Out  of  this  defect  springs  most  of 
the  excitement  which  is  aroused  whenever  and  wher- 
ever it  is  sought  to  be  executed  throughout  the  free 
States,  and  which  will  continue  to  exist  until  these  ob- 
jectionable features  of  the  law  are  removed.  It  is  from 
this  cause  that  such  prosecutions  as  these  in  which  we 
are  now  engaged  arise. 

My  word  for  it,  gentlemen,  if  this  law  gave  a  right 
to  have  the  question  of  a  man's  freedom  tried  before  a 
jury  of  twelve  men,  under  all  the  solemn  sanctions  of  a 
court  of  justice,  determined  by  legal  and  competent 
evidence,  given  openly  and  with  that  right  of  cross- 
examination  of  witnesses  so  essential  to  the  discovery 
of  truth  and  the  exposing  of  falsehood  and  fraud,  and 
the  fact  that  the  man  was  a  slave  were  established  by 
the  verdict  of  the  jury,  —  my  word  for  it,  that  a  certifi- 
cate under  the  broad  seal  of  this  high  tribunal,  setting 
forth  such  judgment,  would  enable  the  claimant  to  go 
from  one  end  of  this  State  —  ay,  of  this  whole  country 
—  to  the  other  without  interruption  or  molestation. 

Why  was  not  such  a  provision  inserted  in  this  act  ? 
Is  it  not  demanded  by  every  principle  of  justice 
and  right  ?  Is  there  any  possible  ground  of  reason  on 
which  it  can  be  maintained  that  a  freeman  of  a  free 
State  should  be  deprived  forever  of  his  liberty,  without 
"  the  judgment  of  a  jury  of  his  peers,  according  to  the 
law  of  the  land  "  ? 


90         ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE. 

The  learned  counsel  for  the  Government  have  invoked, 
in  behalf  of  this  law,  the  great  name  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster. They  have  eulogized  him  as  the  great  intellectual 
giant  of  the  age,  the  most  illustrious  expounder  of  the 
Constitution.  I  summon  that  distinguished  name  in 
support  of  the  objection  which  I  am  urging  against 
this  law. 

Mr.  Webster  himself  prepared  a  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
such  as,  in  his  view,  it  was  proper  for  Congress  to  pass 
to  carry  out  this  clause  of  the  Constitution  in  a  lawful 
and  proper  manner.  He  rose  in  his  place  in  the 
Senate,  on  the  3d  of  June,  1850,  and  stated  "that  the 
subject  of  preparing  a  bill  respecting  the  reclaiming  of 
fugitive  slaves  had  engaged  his  attention  at  an  early 
period  of  the  session ;  that  in  pursuance  of  this  pur- 
pose he  had  conferred  with  some  of  the  most  eminent 
members  of  the  profession,  and  especially  with  a  high 
judicial  authority  who  had  more  to  do  with  questions 
of  this  kind  than  any  other  judge  in  the  United 
States." 

This  bill,  thus  prepared  by  that  great  statesman  him- 
self, contained  a  proviso,  giving  a  right  of  trial  by  jury 
to  determine  the  question  of  freedom  or  slavery. 
Under  the  act  framed  by  Mr.  Webster,  there  would 
have  been  no  difficulty  and  no  excitement.  It  would 
have  commended  itself  to  the  calm  judgment  and  good 
sense  of  the  country,  and  could  have  been  executed 
without  serious  interference. 

I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  fact  which  will  be  urged 
in  reply,  that  Mr.  Webster  did,  at  a  subsequent  period, 
give  his  countenance  to  the  law  we  are  now  consider- 
ing ;  but  it  is  clear  that  the  law  which  he  prepared 
himself,  giving  a  jury  trial,  had  the  approval  of  his  best 
and  most  deliberate  judgment ;  and  although  he  yielded 


ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE.        91 

his  support  to  this  law  of  1850,  yet  it  was  at  a  time 
when  the  weak  ambition  of  place  and  power  had  taken 
possession  of  his  nature.  He  had  forgotten  that  no- 
blest saying  of  a  noble  man,  —  "I  had  rather  be  right 
than  be  President." 

It  is  the  danger  of  men  in  public  life  to  be  dazzled 
by  the  tempting  prizes  of  worldly  honor.  They  forget 
that  offices  and  honors  are  but  for  a  day,  and  that  a 
true  and  enduring  fame  can  only  rest  upon  services  to 
the  great  rights  and  interests  of  humanity.  They  for- 
get that  while  the  names  of  men  who  sat  in  the  high 
places  of  power  in  England,  and  enacted  unjust  and 
oppressive  laws,  and  of  the  judges  who  became  the 
willing  instruments  of  their  execution,  have  been  for- 
gotten, or  remembered  only  to  be  execrated,  the 
names  of  Hampden  and  Sidney,  men  who  were  pun- 
ished as  criminals  for  resistance  to  such  laws,  have 
been  enshrined  for  centuries  in  the  grateful  remem- 
brance of  mankind,  and  will  be  as  shining  lights  for- 
ever in  the  pathway  of  human  history. 

But,  gentlemen,  not  only  does  this  law  deprive  the 
citizen  of  the  benefit  of  a  trial  by  jury  to  pass  upon  the 
great  question  of  his  right  to  liberty, — not  only  does  it 
allow  inferior  officers,  not  claimed  to  have  any  judicial 
character,  upon  ex  parte  evidence  and  affidavits,  and 
after  a  hearing  required  to  be  of  a  summary  character, 
to  condemn  a  man  found  in  a  free  State  to  be  a  slave 
for  life,  —  but  there  is  a  further  provision  of  the  law 
which  ties  up  and  controls  the  action  of  these  commis- 
sioners themselves,  in  a  manner  so  opposed  to  every 
principle  of  justice,  so  liable  to  be  made  the  means 
of  the  grossest  fraud  and  villany,  that  it  seems  almost 
beyond  belief  that  such  a  provision  could  have  been 
enacted  by  the  representatives  of  a  free  people. 


92         ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE. 

The  tenth  section  of  this  law  authorizes  an  ex  parte 
record  to  be  made  up  in  the  court  of  a  slave  State,  in 
the  absence  of  the  party  to  be  affected  by  it ;  and  this 
record  thus  made  up  is,  by  that  section,  made  abso- 
lutely conclusive  of  the  fact  of  the  man  described  in  it 
being  a  slave. 

That  I  may  not  mistake  or  overstate  about  this  mat- 
ter, I  will  read  you  the  section  itself :  — 

"  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  when  any  person  held 
to  service  or  labor  in  any  State  or  Territory,  or  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  shall  escape  therefrom,  the  party  to 
whom  such  service  or  labor  shall  be  due,  his,  her,  or  their 
agent  or  attorney,  may  apply  to  any  Court  of  Record 
therein,  or  Judge  thereof,  in  vacation,  and  make  satisfac- 
tory proof  to  such  Court  or  Judge  in  vacation,  of  the  es- 
cape aforesaid,  and  that  the  person  escaping  owed  service 
or  labor  to  such  party.  Whereupon  the  Court  shall  cause 
a  record  to  be  made  of  the  matters  so  proved,  and  also  a 
general  description  of  the  person  so  escaping,  with  such 
convenient  certainty  as  may  be  ;  and  a  transcript  of  such 
record  authenticated  by  the  attestation  of  the  Clerk  and 
of  the  seal  of  the  said  Court,  being  produced  in  any  other 
State,  Territory,  or  District  in  which  the  person  so  escap- 
ing maybe  found,  and  being  exhibited  to  any  Judge,  Com- 
missioner, or  other  officer  authorized  by  the  law  of  the 
United  States  to  cause  persons  escaping  from  service  or 
labor  to  be  delivered  up,  shall  be  held  and  taken  to  be  full 
and  conclusive  evidence  of  the  fact  of  escape,  and  that  the 
service  or  labor  of  the  person  escaping  is  due  to  the  party 
in  such  record  mentioned.  And  upon  the  production  by 
the  said  party  of  other  and  further  evidence,  if  necessary, 
either  orM  or  by  affidavit,  in  addition  to  what  is  contained 
in  the  said  record,  of  the  identity  of  the  person  escaping, 
he  or  she  shall  be  delivered  up  to  the  claimant.  And  the 
said  Court,  Commissioner,  Judge,  or  other  person,  author- 
ized by  this  act  to  grant  certificates  to  claimants  of  fugitives, 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.         93 

shall,  upon  the  production  of  the  record  and  other  evi- 
dences aforesaid,  grant  to  such  claimant  a  certificate  of 
his  right  to  take  any  such  person  identified  and  proved  to 
be  owing  service  or  labor  as  aforesaid,  which  certificate 
shall  authorize  such  claimant  to  seize  or  arrest  and  trans- 
port such  person  to  the  State  or  Territory  from  which  he 
escaped." 

Under  this  section  of  the  act,  a  Southern  slaveholder 
can  go  into  a  Southern  court  and  make  oath  that  a  per- 
son whom  he  describes  is  his  slave  and  has  escaped 
from  him.  This  testimony  is  given  and  recorded  in 
the  absence  of,  and  with  no  notice  to,  the  person  who 
is  to  be  affected  by  it.  It  is  the  testimony  of  the  al- 
leged owner  himself,  and  of  such  parties  as  he  chooses 
to  summon  to  the  service  of  his  designs.  It  is  taken 
and  recorded  without  any  scrutiny  into  its  correct- 
ness or  test  of  its  authenticity,  and  made  a  matter  of 
record. 

And  this  record,  so  made  up,  is  made  absolutely  con- 
clusive upon  the  Hberty  of  a  man  absent  in  another 
State,  and  ignorant  of  the  whole  proceedings.  Was 
there  ever  a  greater  outrage  than  this  sought  to  be  per- 
petrated under  the  forms  of  law  ? 

Gentlemen,  the  learned  Attorney  for  the  Government 
has  said  to  you  in  advance,  that  I  should  denounce 
this  law  and  endeavor  to  excite  your  passions  and 
arouse  your  indignation  against  it,  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  from  your  prejudices  what  I  could  not  secure 
by  an  appeal  to  your  reason  and  judgment. 

If  I  have  brought  up  these  provisions  of  this  law  in 
review  before  you,  it  has  not  been  for  the  purpose  of 
exciting  your  prejudices.  It  has  been  because  the 
dangers  and  abuses  to  which  this  law  is  liable  in  its 
execution  impose  peculiar  duties  on  every  citizen  of 


94         ARGUMENT   IN  A  SLAVE   CASE. 

this  free  State ;  and  within  the  legitimate  and  proper 
range  of  these  duties,  as  I  will  show  you  hereafter, 
are  embraced  nearly  all  the  acts  which  are  offered  in 
evidence  against  this  defendant. 

Not,  then,  to  inflame  your  passions,  not  to  excite 
your  prejudices,  do  I  call  your  attention  to  the  provi- 
sions of  this  law,  but  to  make  you  fully  understand  and 
appreciate  the  great  dangers  to  the  rights  of  freemen 
which  it  occasions,  to  make  you  see  and  feel  that  it 
is  only  by  vigilant  watchfulness  and  prompt  action  on 
the  part  of  the  citizens  whenever  it  is  attempted  to  be 
enforced,  that  the  unlawful  arrest  and  enslavement  of 
freemen  can  be  prevented. 

Recur  again,  then,  in  this  view  of  the  subject,  to  the 
provisions  of  this  tenth  section,  and  see  what  abuses 
may  be  perpetrated  against  the  rights  of  free  citizens 
under  this  section  of  the  act. 

Here,  for  example,  is  this  Phillipps,  a  slaveholder 
from  Southern  Missouri.  He  has  been  for  weeks  in 
this  city  as  a  witness  in  these  prosecutions.  What  is 
to  prevent  him  from  obtaining  accurate  descriptions  of 
the  colored  men  whom  he  meets  in  the  streets,  and 
upon  his  return  making  up  a  record  against  any  person 
upon  whom  his  gaze  has  fastened  ?  He  has  only  to 
step  into  a  Southern  court  and  have  his  description 
made  a  matter  of  record  and  swear  to  them,  and  the 
work  is  done.  The  man  whom  he  has  selected  is 
quietly  pursuing  his  customary  avocation,  in  utter  igno- 
rance that  in  the  mean  while,  in  a  far-off  State,  his  Hb- 
erty  has  been  sworn  away,  gone  forever  from  him, 
even  without  notice  and  without  a  hearing.  The  slave- 
catcher  comes  into  the  State,  obtains  his  process, 
drags  his  victim  before  the  Commissioner,  produces 
his  record,  and  shows,  as  of  course  it  is  easy  to  do,  the 


ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE  CASE. 


95 


identity  of  the  person  arrested  with  the  one  described. 
But,  says  the  man  arrested,  I  am  no  slave,  —  I  am  a 
free  man  ;  I  can  prove  it ;  I  will  call  my  neighbors  to 
establish  it.  But  the  Commissioner  has  no  power  to 
look  at  his  proofs.  The  record  is  conclusive  of  the  fact 
of  slavery.  No  question  but  identity  is  left  to  him.  If 
the  party  arrested  has  his  free  papers  in  his  pocket,  the 
Commissioner  has  no  right  to  regard  them  ;  and  it  was 
so  expressly  held  in  the  case  of  Gorham,  at  Detroit. 

It  may  be  said  that  no  such  case  could  arise  without 
perjury  and  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  claimants.  Well, 
I  am  not  going  to  ask  you  to  admit  that  men,  educated 
under  the  influence  of  slavery,  are  worse  than  other 
men,  but  surely  it  will  not  be  claimed  that  they  are 
better.  And  does  not  our  daily  experience  here  in 
the  North,  both  in  the  places  of  trade  and  the  courts, 
teach  us  that  fraud  and  falsehood  and  perjury  are  of 
frequent  occurrence?  Under  the  temptation  which 
cupidity  and  the  lust  of  gain  create,  men  become 
callous  to  the  wickedness  of  false  swearing.  Have  not 
custom-house  oaths  become  a  byword?  And  what  are 
custom-house  oaths  but  unblushing  violations  of  honesty 
and  truth,  committed  for  the  sake  of  securing  the  profit 
to  be  derived  from  defrauding  the  revenue  laws  of  the 
country  ? 

Why,  it  was  stated  in  one  of  the  public  journals  not 
long  since,  that  a  letter  was  found  in  the  possession  of 
a  notorious  counterfeiter,  from  a  Southern  man,  con- 
taining these  words  :  "  Go  among  the  niggers,  find  out 
their  marks  and  scars,  send  good  descriptions  of  them, 
and  I  '11  find  owners."  Whether  this  be  fact  or  fiction, 
I  know  not ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  such  conspiracies 
against  the  liberties  of  men  could  readily  be  carried 
out  under  this  law. 


96         ARGUMENT   IN  A   SLAVE   CASE. 

No,  gentlemen,  it  is  not  safe,  it  is  not  right  to  trust 
the  liberties  of  men  to  the  chances  of  ex  parte  evi- 
dence.    There  iyno  safety  except  in  a  jury  trial. 

But  it  is  said,  in  reply  to  this  objection,  that  the 
person  delivered  up  under  this  law  does  have  a  jury 
trial,  —  that  he  has  such  trial  in  the  State  from  which  he 
escaped  and  to  which  he  is  returned ;  and  an  analogy 
is  sought  to  be  made  between  this  law  and  the  law  pro- 
viding for  the  return  of  fugitives  from  pubhc  justice. 

This  argument  is  a  specious  delusion.  It  is  as  un- 
sound in  reason  as  it  is  false  in  experience.  It  can 
deceive  no  one  who  does  not  wish  to  be  deceived 
himself  or  desire  to  deceive  others. 

No  man  can  be  arrested  as  a  fugitive  from  justice 
until  he  has  been  duly  indicted  by  a  Grand  Jury  for 
some  offence,  recognized  as  a  crime  according  to  the 
common  law  of  the  country.  When  he  is  arrested,  he 
is  delivered  into  the  hands  of  sworn  officers  of  the  law, 
to  be  taken  by  them  to  the  court  before  which  the 
indictment  is  pending  for  trial.  The  arrest  and  the 
trial  are  parts  of  one  proceeding,  and  unless  tried  and 
convicted,  the  arrested  party  is  again  discharged. 

In  the  case  of  a  person  claimed  to  be  a  slave,  the 
Commissioner  delivers  the  person  into  the  hands  of  the 
person  claiming  him  as  a  slave.  He  becomes  a  slave 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  by  the  decision.  The  per- 
son into  whose  hands  he  is  delivered  is  under  no  obli- 
gation to  carry  him  back  to  the  State  from  which  he  es- 
caped, or  to  carry  him  to  any  place  with  a  view  to  any 
further  trial  of  the  right  to  his  liberty.  The  master  may 
do  as  he  pleases  with  him ;  he  is  subject  to  no  control, 
and  subject  to  no  new  duty  or  liability.  He  may  sell 
the  man  as  a  slave ;  he  may  scourge  and  lacerate 
and  abuse  him.     He  is  his,  finally  and  forever. 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.         97 

It  is  true  that  as  a  slave,  he  has,  to  a  very  limited 
extent,  and  under  such  restrictions  and  limitations  as 
make  it  of  very  little  practical  value,  the  right  in  some 
of  the  States  to  institute  proceedings  to  test  his  right 
to  freedom  before  a  jury.  But  this  is  no  answer  to  the 
objection. 

It  is  the  making  a  man  a  slave  at  all  without  the 
verdict  of  a  jury  upon  the  fact  of  freedom,  of  which  we 
complain.  Here  is  a  man  found  in  a  free  State,  —  the 
law  presumes  him  to  be  free.  He  is  entitled  to  the 
benefit  of  that  presumption  until  the  contrary  is  estab- 
lished by  legal  evidence  and  in  a  legal  manner.  We 
ask  for  the  rights  of  freemen,  and  we  receive  only  the 
rights  of  slaves. 

The  parallel  between  the  two  cases  of  fugitives  from 
justice  and  labor  would  be  correct  if  the  Commis- 
sioner, instead  of  sending  the  fugitive  from  justice 
back  for  trial  in  the  custody  of  sworn  officers  of  the 
law,  were  to  commit  him  to  the  penitentiary  for^life ; 
for  such  sentence  would  not  be  more  final  and  conclu- 
sive in  its  effect  than  that  which,  by  consigning  a  man 
to  his  claimant  under  this  law,  condemns  him  to  the 
life-long  bondage  of  a  slave. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  for  taking  the  alleged  fugi- 
tive away  from  the  State  where  he  is  arrested,  for  the 
purpose  of  a  trial  elsewhere  (if  any  such  trial  were 
within  the  contemplation  or  provision  of  the  statute), 
as  there  is  in  the  case  of  fugitives  from  justice.  In 
criminal  offences  the  venue  is  local.  They  can  be  tried 
only  in  the  county  where  they  were  committed.  But 
questions  of  property  are  transitory,  and  are  triable  as 
well  in  one  place  as  in  another.  And  the  question  of 
tide  to  a  man  claimed  as  a  slave  is  a  pure  question  of 
property.  It  has  been  so  held  from  the  earliest  records 
7 


98         ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE  CASE. 

of  the  common  law.  If  a  man  from  a  slave  State  claims 
property  in  a  bale  of  cotton  found  in  this  State,  he  does 
not  transport  the  property  elsewhere  to  try  the  title  to 
it.  It  is  tried  here,  before  a  jury ;  and  there  is  no  prin- 
ciple of  the  law  which  justifies  a  removal  of  the  prop- 
erty out  of  the  defendant's  possession  until  the  title  of 
the  claimant  is  established  by  the  judgment  of  a  court 
of  law. 

If  this  doctrine  be  true  with  reference  to  personal 
property  of  every  nature,  with  how  much  more  force 
does  it  apply  to  cases  where  the  right  to  be  tried  is  that 
of  a  citizen  of  a  free  State  to  his  personal  liberty.  By 
the  law  of  the  free  States  he  is  presumed  to  be  free  until 
the  contrary  is  established.  By  the  law  of  the  slave 
States,  if  he  have  a  certain  admixture  of  African  blood, 
he  is  presumed  to  be  a  slave  until  the  contrary  is  estab- 
lished. There  is,  then,  a  most  vital  distinction  between 
a  trial  by  jury  in  a  slave  State  (even  if  any  such  were 
given  under  this  law,  which  is  not  the  case)  and  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury  in  a  free  State.  In  the  one  case 
the  law  proves  his  freedom,  and  the  burden  of  proof  is 
on  the  claimant  to  establish  the  fact  of  slavery.  In  the 
other,  the  law  proves  him  to  be  a  slave,  and  the  burden 
is  on  him  to  prove  his  freedom. 

Is  it  asking  too  much  that  a  free  man  in  a  free  State 
should  be  entitled  to  be  adjudged  a  slave  by  the  ver- 
dict of  a  jury  of  his  countrymen  before  he  be  delivered 
over  into  bondage  ? 

But  it  is  said  that  if  a  trial  by  jury  were  given,  under 
the  law,  it  would  render  it  a  nullity,  —  that  Northern 
juries  would  refuse  to  find  in  conformity  with  the  facts 
of  the  law.  I  deny  the  assertion.  It  is  a  libel  upon 
Northern  juries.  It  is  answered  by  these  very  prosecu- 
tions themselves.     How  are  the  violations  of  this  law 


ARGUMENT  IN  A  SLAVE  CASE.    99 

to  be  punished?  Must  not  all  these  be  tried  by  a 
Northern  jury :  and  is  it  an  easier  matter  to  induce  a 
jury  to  convict  a  man  under  this  law,  to  impose  fines 
and  imprisonment  on  those  who  rescue  a  slave,  than  it 
would  be  to  establish  the  claimant's  right  of  property 
in  the  slave  so  rescued?  Why,  in  every  prosecution 
under  this  law,  the  title  of  the  master  to  the  alleged 
slave  has  to  be  found  by  the  jury,  under  their  oaths,  as 
an  essential  prerequisite  to  every  conviction. 

If  the  jury  can  be  relied  on  to  find  according  to  the 
fact  in  a  prosecution  against  a  white  citizen,  surely  they 
would  not  have  greater  difficulty  in  finding  the  same 
fact  in  a  suit  against  a  negro  claimed  as  a  slave. 

I  must  not  close  my  review  of  the  objectionable 
features  of  this  law.  without  alluding  to  one  so  odious 
as  to  meet  with  the  disapproval  even  of  the  learned 
counsel  who  opened  this  case  on  the  part  of  the 
Government. 

I  mean  that  provision  which  authorizes  the  slave- 
owner and  his  agents  to  require  the  assistance  of  the 
citizens  of  the  free  States  in  the  capture  of  runaway 
slaves.  It  would  seem  as  if,  in  the  contemplation  of 
this  law,  the  free  States  of  this  Union  were  to  become 
the  hunting-ground  for  slaves,  and  the  freemen  who 
inhabit  them  were  to  become  slave-catchers  at  the 
beck  and  nod  of  the  slaveholders. 

It  was  not  strange  that  the  distinguished  Senator 
from  Massachusetts  —  that  noble  man,  whose  name  is 
dear  to  every  lover  of  liberty  and  humanity  the  world 
over  —  should  have  said,  in  reply  to  the  question  of 
Mr.  Butler,  of  South  Carolina,  whether  he  would  aid 
in  the  capture  and  rendition  of  a  fugitive  under 
this  law,  "  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he  should  do 
this  thing?" 


lOO      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

I  have  now  finished  my  review  of  the  provisions  of 
this  law,  and  I  think  I  cannot  have  failed  to  demon- 
strate to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  every  intelligent  and 
candid  mind,  that  there  are  great  liabilities  to  abuse 
and  great  dangers  to  the  rights  of  freemen  necessarily 
consequent  upon  the  execution  of  this  law ;  and  it  is  this 
proposition  to  which  I  desire  your  united  and  unquah- 
fied  assent,  as  the  first  position  in  the  argument  which 
I  make  to  you  in  this  cause. 

In  that  argument,  gentlemen,  I  propose  to  address 
myself  wholly  to  your  understandings,  —  to  make  no 
appeals  to  your  prejudice  or  passion. 

The  learned  counsel  for  the  Government  have  said 
that  I  should  address  you  as  political  partisans,  and 
seek  to  gain  your  verdict  by  an  appeal  to  party  pre- 
judices. It  was  a  strange  remark  to  be  made  in  this 
case.  It  would  seem  that  if  there  were  any  one  who 
should  deprecate  appeals  to  party,  who  should  implore 
this  jury  to  rise  out  of  the  low  level  of  partisan  politics 
into  the  higher  region  of  reason,  conscience,  and  truth, 
it  would  be  the  counsel  who  is  now  addressing  a  jury 
of  which  but  two  or  three  at  the  most  are  members  of 
the  same  political  party  with  himself.  What  have  I  to 
gain  at  your  hands  through  the  power  of  party  preju- 
dice ?  No,  gentlemen,  it  is  for  me  to  appeal  to  you  to 
forget  that  you  are  Democrats,  to  forget  that  you  are 
Republicans,  and  remember  only  that  you  are  jurors. 
If  I  cannot  obtain  a  verdict  by  an  appeal  to  your 
reason  and  your  intelligence,  I  have  certainly  nothing 
to  hope  for  by  an  appeal  to  your  pohtical  prejudices. 

Gentlemen,  for  myself  I  belong  to  no  party  which  is 
disloyal  to  the  Constitution  of  my  country,  or  which 
sanctions  any  violation  of  the  laws.  I  shall  ask  nothing 
at  your  hands  in  this  argument  but  what  I  can  ask 


ARGUMENT  IN  A  SLAVE  CASE.   loi 

under  the  law  and  the  evidence ;  and  I  solicit  your 
earnest  and  considerate  attention  to  all  which  in  the 
discharge  of  my  duty  to  this  cause  I  shall  have  to  say 
to  you. 

The  next  proposition  to  which  I  ask  your  assent, 
and  which  will  commend  itself  to  your  highest  judg- 
ment, both  as  citizens  and  as  men,  is  this  :  That  it  is 
the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  take  a  personal  interest  in 
securing  the  liberty  of  every  citizen  in  the  community 
from  unlawful  invasion ;  and  it  is  his  right,  as  well  as 
his  duty,  to  take  all  lawful  action  to  prevent  such 
unlawful  invasion. 

This  doctrine  not  only  approves  itself  to  our  own 
judgment  as  citizens  of  a  free  State,  where  to  invade 
the  liberty  and  rights  of  the  humblest  member  of  the 
constituency  is  to  violate  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the 
State  itself;  but  it  is  sanctioned  by  express  judicial 
authority  even  in  England,  where  the  rights  and  liber- 
ties of  the  citizen  are  not  supposed  to  be  more  highly 
regarded  or  more  jealously  secured  than  in  the  Republic 
of  the  United  States. 

I  will  read  to  you,  from  a  work  of  acknowledged 
authority  in  our  courts,  —  "Russell  on  Crimes,"  —  a 
passage  upon  this  subject. 

"  One  Bray,  who  was  a  constable  of  St.  Margaret's 
Parish,  London,  came  into  the  parish  of  St.  Paul,  Covent 
Garden,  where  he  was  no  constable,  and  consequently 
had  no  authority,  and  took  up  one  Ann  Dekins,  against 
whom  he  had  no  warrant.  In  a  controversy  which  ensued 
in  reference  to  this  arrest,  the  constable  was  killed,  and 
the  question  was  whether  the  unlawful  arrest  was  a  suffi- 
cient provocation  to  reduce  the  crime  from  murder  to 
manslaughter. 

"  It  was  held,  after  elaborate  argument,  that  the  pris- 
oners had  sufficient  provocation  on  the  ground  that  if  one 


I02       ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

be  imprisoned  upon  an  unlawful  authority ^  it  is  a  suffi- 
cient provocation  to  all  people  out  of  compassion,  and 
much  more  where  it  is  done  under  a  color  of  justice,  and 

THAT  WHERE  THE  LIBERTY  OF  THE  SUBJECT  IS  IN- 
VADED   IT    IS  A    PROVOCATION    TO    ALL    THE    SUBJECTS 

OF  England." 

Gendemen,  it  is  the  maxim  of  a  cold  and  selfish  as 
well  as  false  philosophy,  that  it  is  no  concern  of  mine 
when  the  liberties  of  others  are  taken  away.  The  idea 
is  as  unfounded  in  sound  reason  and  human  experience 
as  it  is  opposed  to  the  high  obligation  of  the  citizen, 
and  unworthy  of  the  noble  and  more  generous  senti- 
ments of  human  nature. 

Algernon  Sidney,  on  the  night  before  his  execution, 
said  to  his  nephew  in  prison  :  — 

**  I  value  not  my  own  life  a  chip ;  but  what  concerns  me 
is  that  the  law  which  takes  away  my  life  may  hang  every 
citizen  of  England  whenever  it  is  thought  convenient." 

The  thought  which  in  the  great  soul  of  this  noble 
man  rose  above  all  thoughts  of  self,  and  in  view  of 
which  the  loss  of  his  own  life  was  as  nothing  to  him, 
was  that  the  blow  which  destroyed  him  was  destructive 
of  the  rights  of  every  citizen  of  his  country,  —  that  in 
his  person  Liberty  itself  was  struck  down. 

Why,  gentlemen,  you  all  remember  the  thrill  of  en- 
thusiasm which  ran  through  the  country  when  Com- 
modore Ingraham  anchored  a  United  States  ship-of-war 
in  front  of  a  city  under  Austrian  rule,  and  cleared 
the  deck  for  action,  in  support  of  his  demand  for  the 
release  of  Martin  Kosta,  an  American  citizen  unlaw- 
fully seized  and  deprived  of  his  liberty.  Why,  Martin 
Kosta  was  a  very  insignificant  individual.  He  has 
subsequently  resided  in  this  city,  and  personally  is  of 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       103 

very  little  account.  But  the  whole  nation  applauded 
the  action  of  Commodore  Ingraham.  Why?  Because 
his  action  represented  the  whole  nation,  and  was  a 
noble  assertion  of  the  great  truth  that  the  liberty  of 
the  humblest  citizen  is  regarded  as  a  matter  so  precious 
and  so  sacred  as  to  jusdy  enlist  the  whole  power  of 
the  nation  in  its  behalf. 

But  a  short  time  since,  a  young  Jewish  boy,  by  the 
name  of  Mortara,  was  unlawfully  held  in  custody  by 
the  ecclesiastical  authority  in  Italy,  and  from  one  end 
of  the  world  to  the  other  the  Jewish  people  interested 
themselves  in  the  matter.  Of  what  consequence  was 
it,  it  might  be  asked,  to  a  Jew  here  in  America,  whether 
Mortara  was  unlawfully  held  or  not  ?  It  did  not  affect 
him ;  it  did  not  lessen  his  profits  or  interfere  with  his 
business.  But  every  Jew  could  see  beneath  the  arrest 
of  this  Jewish  boy  a  principle  of  despotic  power,  which, 
if  unrebuked  and  unrestrained,  might  overthrow  the 
rights  of  conscience  and  destroy  the  liberty  of  every 
other  Jew.  Such  will  ever  be  the  sentiments  which 
will  animate  a  people  who  prize  their  liberties  and 
expect  to  retain  them. 

In  those  ages  of  history  when  men  stood  by  and 
saw  their  fellow-men  borne  away  to  imprisonment  or 
death  at  the  will  of  the  government,  without  law  or 
right,  and  either  cared  not  or  dared  not  raise  a  voice 
or  hand  in  their  behalf  liberty  was  but  a  name.  It 
has  cost  ages  of  struggle  and  oceans  of  blood  to  se- 
cure to  mankind  the  great  rights  of  personal  liberty, 
which  are  the  birthright  of  every  citizen  of  America ; 
and  when  we  become  indifferent  to  the  invasion  of 
these  rights,  we  have  taken  the  first  step  toward  their 
overthrow.  It  is  fitly  and  truly  said  that  "  Eternal 
vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty." 


I04      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

If  such  be  the  high  duty  of  every  freeman  with 
respect  to  all  unlawful  invasions  of  the  liberties  of  the 
citizen,  then  there  must  be  left  to  the  citizen,  under 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  without  criminality,  the  perform- 
ance of  every  act  which  is  just,  necessary,  and  proper 
in  the  lawful  execution  of  that  duty.  The  obligation 
to  obey  the  law  must  not  be  so  construed  as  to  make 
it  criminal  in  the  citizen  vigilantly  to  investigate  every 
attempt  to  enforce  its  execution,  and  promptly  and 
efficiendy  to  guard  and  prevent  all  unlawful  outrages 
on  the  liberties  of  the  citizen  which  may  be  sought  to 
be  perpetrated  under  its  sanction. 

If  I  see  a  man  forcibly  seize  one  of  my  fellow-men, 
claiming  him  as  his  slave  and  with  intention  to  bear 
him  away  to  life-long  bondage,  am  I  to  stand  coldly  by 
in  silent  indifference  and  unconcern?  Am  I  to  leave 
him  to  his  fate  without  an  effort  to  investigate  the 
matter?  Such  a  doctrine  as  this  may  commend  itself 
to  men  who  have  no  hearts  to  feel,  —  men  who  in  the 
dead  insensibility  of  their  natures  to  everything  but 
what  touches  their  own  individual  interests,  cannot  rise 
to  the  conception  of  a  generous  sentiment,  much  less 
to  the  performance  of  an  unselfish  action ;  but  it  is 
not  the  feeling  of  men  who  possess  a  human  nature. 
Nor,  I  trust,  gentlemen,  would  it  make  any  difference 
to  any  man,  in  such  a  case,  that  the  person  so  seized 
and  about  to  be  hurried  off  to  everlasting  bondage 
had  a  skin  darker  than  his  own. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  done  when  this  law  is  sought  to 
be  enforced  in  the  free  States  ?  I  have  shown  you  that 
there  is  the  greatest  liability  to  abuses  under  it.  I 
have  proved  to  you  that  its  execution  is  pregnant  with 
dangers  to  the  liberties  of  the  citizen.  It  is  clear,  then, 
that  some  action  is  demanded  on  the  part  of  those  who 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       105 

*  duly  value  the  liberty  of  the  freemen  of  a  free  State 
under  such  circumstances. 

What,  then,  may  be  lawfully  done?  What  ought 
always  to  be  done  wherever  the  execution  of  this  law 
is  attempted,  if  we  would  prevent  these  abuses  and 
guard  against  these  dangers? 

Manifestly  the  first  step  is  to  secure  as  full,  thorough, 
searching  investigation  into  the  facts  and  proceedings 
as  is  possible,  —  to  compel  the  production  of  the  pro- 
cess of  arrest,  to  subject  such  process  to  legal  scrutiny, 
to  have  all  the  facts  as  carefully  examined  into  and 
tested  as  the  summary  character  of  the  proceedings 
will  permit,  and  to  make  every  necessary  arrangement 
to  prevent  the  abduction  of  the  party  claimed  as  a 
slave  surreptitiously  or  violently  without  lawful  sanction. 

All  this  every  man  would,  it  seems  to  me,  admit  with- 
out hesitation  ought  to  be  done,  and  done  promptly 
and  effectually,  in  every  case  where  this  law  is  attempted 
to  be  executed.  All  this  would  be  wholly  unnecessary 
if  a  jury  trial  were  to  be  made  under  the  law,  to  deter- 
mine the  question  of  freedom  or  slavery ;  for  then 
every  man  would  rest  satisfied  that  justice  would  be 
done  through  the  courts  of  the  country.  It  is  because 
a  man  may  be  seized  in  a  moment,  and  before  the  sun 
goes  down  borne  away  from  a  free  State  into  life-long 
slavery,  without  a  trial,  that  prompt,  efficient,  and  de- 
cisive action  is  necessary  in  such  cases. 

If,  then,  such  action  as  I  have  indicated  is  not  only 
right  and  proper,  but  is  demanded  by  our  regard  for 
the  rights  of  freemen,  then  it  is  lawful  for  me  to  as- 
semble my  friends  and  neighbors  together ;  to  interest 
them  in  the  matter;  to  relate  to  them  the  facts;  to 
cause  public  meetings  to  be  held,  committees  to  be 
appointed,  counsel  to  be  engaged,  and  every  arrange- 


I06      ARGUMENT  IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

ment  made,  not  only  to  secure  the  needful  investigation, 
but  to  provide  whatever  force  may  be  requisite  to  pre- 
vent the  forcible  or  secret  abduction  of  the  accused 
person  before  such  investigation  can  be  had,  or  in  vio- 
lation of  the  law. 

It  may  be  said  that  I  am  consuming  time  in  con- 
tending for  what  is  too  clear  and  unquestionable  to 
admit  of  debate  or  denial.  If  I  have  dwelt  so  fully 
upon  these  principles  and  views  which  I  have  been 
considering,  it  is  because  they  dispose  effectually  of 
almost  the  entire  evidence  in  this  cause.  It  requires 
but  the  fair  application  of  these  principles  to  the  testi- 
mony before  you  to  establish  to  your  entire  satisfaction 
that  every  word  and  act  of  the  defendant  prior  to  the 
final  decision  of  Judge  Caton  is  fully  explained,  justi- 
fied, and  deprived  of  all  criminality.  In  the  light  of 
these  principles,  then,  let  us  proceed  to  examine  the 
evidence. 

The  defendant  is  on  trial  for  a  specific  charge  set 
forth  in  the  indictment. 

That  charge  is  that  he  rescued  or  aided  in  the  rescue 
of  a  fugitive  from  labor,  called  Jim,  belonging  to  one 
Richard  Phillipps,  from  the  custody  of  Isaac  N.  Albright, 
then  and  there  holding  him,  as  a  Deputy  Marshal  of 
the  United  States  for  the  Southern  District  of  Illinois, 
by  virtue  of  a  Commissioner's  warrant  for  the  arrest  of 
such  fugitive. 

To  establish  the  offence  charged  in  the  indictment, 
it  is  indispensably  necessary  that  the  following  facts 
should  be  proven :  — 

I.  That  the  negro,  Jim,  was  a  slave  held  to  service 
to  Phillipps  under  the  law  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  and 
that  while  so  held  he  escaped  from  such  service  into 
the  State  of  Illinois. 


ARGUMENT  IN  A  SLAVE  CASE.   107 

2.  That  a  lawful  warrant  was  issued  by  a  lawful  offi- 
cer for  the  arrest  of  such  fugitive. 

3.  That  such  warrant  was  delivered  to  Isaac  N. 
Albright  to  be  executed,  and  that  said  Albright  was  a 
Deputy  United  States  Marshal  for  the  Southern  District 
of  Illinois,  and  that  said  Albright  arrested  and  held  said 
negro,  Jim,  under  said  warrant. 

4.  That  the  defendant  had  due  notice  or  knowledge  of 
these  facts. 

5.  That  he  rescued,  or  aided  in  the  rescue  of,  said 
slave  after  such  notice. 

The  first  three  propositions  I  do  not  propose  to  dis- 
cuss. They  involve  questions  of  law  which  were  very 
elaborately  argued  in  a  former  trial ;  and  having  been 
decided  by  the  court,  they  are  to  be  assumed  to  be 
established  for  the  purpose  of  this  trial. 

It  is,  therefore,  only  with  the  two  remaining  ques- 
tions that  we  have  anything  to  do. 

Now,  in  the  consideration  of  the  evidence  in  this 
case,  I  propose  to  consider,  first,  what  was  done  by  the 
defendant  prior  to  the  decision  of  Judge  Caton,  that 
the  negro  was  lawfully  held  by  Albright  and  must  be 
remanded  to  his  custody ;  and,  second,  what  appears 
in  evidence  against  him  after  that  decision. 

This  is  a  most  important  division  of  the  evidence, 
and  one  which  is  most  necessary  to  be  made.  For  it 
is  manifest  that  the  same  words  and  acts  which  subse- 
quent to  that  decision  would  have  been  criminal,  and 
justly  attributable  to  an  unlawful  purpose  to  rescue  the 
slave  from  legal  custody,  might,  if  said  or  done  prior  to 
that  decision,  be  all  consistent  with  a  lawful  and  proper 
intention,  and  referable  to  just  and  proper  motives. 

I.  The  first  proposition  which  I  will  undertake  to 
demonstrate  to  your  entire  satisfaction  from  the  evi- 


I08      ARGUMENT   IN  A   SLAVE  CASE. 

dence  is  this,  \h3.i  prior  to  the  examination  before  Judge 
Caton  there  is  not  only  no  evidence  in  the  case  estab- 
h'shing  any  notice  to  this  defendant  that  Jim  was  a 
slave,  and  was  held  under  a  legal  warrant  issued  under 
this  law  for  his  arrest,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  this  de- 
fendant, with  the  other  citizens  of  Ottawa,  had  just  rea- 
son to  believe,  from  the  facts  which  have  been  proven 
in  evidence  relating  to  the  original  arrest  and  subse- 
quent treatment  of  this  man,  and  from  the  conduct 
of  the  parties  connected  with  these  transactions,  that 
these  parties  were  engaged  in  an  unlawful  conspiracy 
to  kidnap  this  man  and  carry  him  into  slavery. 

I  have  endeavored  to  prove  to  you  that  any  arrest 
under  this  law  is  a  sufficient  justification  to  every  cit- 
izen to  take  such  measures  as  are  necessary  to  test  its 
legality  and  prevent  the  consummation  of  an  outrage 
against  personal  liberty  under  the  cover  of  law. 

But  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  arrest  of 
this  man,  Jim,  were  of  such  a  character,  and  the  subse- 
quent treatment  of  him  was  such,  as  rightly  to  arouse 
the  public  feeling,  and  create  the  impression  in  the 
public  mind  that  this  man  was  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  had  no  respect  for  the  law  of  the  land,  and  who 
meant  to  seize  and  carry  him  away  without  right  or 
authority. 

The  fact  stands  out  uncontradicted  and  undeniable 
upon  the  evidence  that  this  man,  Jim,  had  been  seized 
by  a  set  of  men  who  are  engaged  in  the  business 
of  kidnapping  negroes  and  running  them  out  of  the 
State,  or  delivering  them  up  for  a  price  to  pretended 
owners. 

It  is  not  denied  that  on  the  soil  of  this  free  State, 
such  outrages  as  these  are  being  constantly  committed. 
The  men,  Jones  and  Curtley,  were  the  leaders  of  this 


ARGUMENT    IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       109 

infernal  wickedness.  They  arrested  this  man  without 
process,  without  any  complaint  against  him,  and  carried 
him  into  Union  County.  He  was  there  committed  to 
jail  by  a  jury  of  that  county,  because  he  had  no  free 
papers  !  There  was  actually,  gentlemen,  a  man  found 
filling  a  judicial  position  in  this  State,  so  ignorant  of 
law  that  he  did  not  know  that  every  man  found  in  a 
free  State  is  presumed  to  be  free  !  He  supposed  that 
it  was  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  the  right  of  a  man  of 
dark  complexion  to  breathe  the  free  air  and  walk  the 
broad  prairies  of  this  free  State,  that  he  should  have  a 
certificate  of  freedom  in  his  pocket.  He  has  learned, 
I  trust,  by  this  time,  that  under  the  constitution  and 
laws  of  this  State,  every  man,  white  or  black,  who  is 
found  within  its  limits  is  presumed  to  be  free. 

To  relieve  this  man  from  this  unlawful  imprisonment, 
Judge  Caton  issued  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  This  writ 
was  delivered  to  the  jailer  of  Union  County  on  the  7th 
or  8th  of  October ;  and  yet,  gentlemen,  notwithstanding 
this,  —  and  I  call  your  attention  to  this  as  a  most  im- 
portant fact  in  the  chain  of  circumstances  which  led 
the  citizens  of  Ottawa  to  believe  that  there  was  an  un- 
lawful conspiracy  to  deprive  this  man  of  his  liberty,  — 
notwithstanding  this  writ  was  served  on  the  7th  or  8th 
of  October  on  Albright,  and  notwithstanding  it  takes 
but  two  days  to  go  from  Jonesboro'  to  Ottawa,  it  was 
not  until  the  18th  of  October  that  this  jailer  started  for 
Ottawa  with  the  negro.  During  all  this  time  he  and 
those  with  whom  he  was  acting  kept  Jim  in  confine- 
ment in  jail,  contrary  to  law  and  in  contempt  of  the 
highest  judicial  officer  in  the  State.  Was  not  this  a 
high-handed  violation  of  law  ?  Why,  this  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  is  the  highest  writ  known  to  the  law.  It  is  issued 
for  the  very  purpose  of  preventing  any  invasion  of 


no      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

personal  liberty.  It  commanded  Albright  to  bring  this 
man  before  Judge  Caton  forthwith.  Every  hour  of 
unnecessary  delay  after  the  service  of  this  process  was 
a  contempt  of  this  great  Writ  of  Right.  And  yet  these 
men  disregarded  this  writ  for  more  than  ten  days,  hold- 
ing this  man,  Jim,  during  all  that  time  in  unlawful  con- 
finement. During  nearly  all  this  time  there  was  no 
person  claiming  any  right  to  this  man  ;  but  they  were 
holding  him  in  jail  in  defiance  of  the  writ,  while  he  was 
being  advertised  in  the  newspapers  for  the  purpose  of 
finding  an  owner  and  obtaining  a  reward.  These  facts 
were  all  known  at  Ottawa  prior  to  this  examination  be- 
fore Judge  Caton.  Were  they  not  of  a  nature  justly  to 
occasion  a  belief  in  an  intention  to  run  this  man  out  of 
the  State  in  defiance  of  all  law  and  of  all  right  ? 

He  had  been  treated  with  the  greatest  barbarity. 
Arrested  without  law,  he  was  dragged  through  the 
country  chained  like  a  felon,  and  thrust  into  prison. 
And  at  last,  when  brought  by  Albright  under  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus,  a  trace  chain  was  fastened  to  his  leg, 
and  his  arms  pinioned  with  ropes,  and  he  was  led  along 
the  streets  of  the  city  of  Ottawa  in  this  inhuman  man- 
ner. With  the  party  came  the  original  kidnappers  and 
negro-stealers,  Jones,  Curtley  and  McKinney,  —  men 
whose  notorious  deeds  in  this  devilish  business  had 
made  their  characters  so  infamous  that  even  the  jailer 
Albright  revolted  from  being  considered  as  one  of  their 
company  ! 

Up  to  this  time  no  knowledge  of  Phillipps  or  of  his 
claim  to  this  man  had  ever  reached  the  ears  of  the 
people  of  Ottawa.  Phillipps  did  not  make  his  appear- 
ance at  Jonesboro'  until  just  before  the  departure  of 
Albright  for  Ottawa.  The  first  that  the  people  of 
Ottawa  knew  of  him  was  that  he  came  up  to  that  city 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       m 

in  company  with  these  kidnappers,  with  whom  he  was 
apparently  in  co-operation. 

Now,  I  submit  whether  these  facts  did  not  justly 
authorize  the  belief  that  this  party  had  leagued  together 
to  carry  out  and  consummate  by  force  or  fraud  the 
unlawful  abduction  of  this  man  whom  they  had  before 
seized,  imprisoned,  and  held  in  custody  in  violation  of 
the  laws  of  the  State. 

Where  is  the  evidence  in  this  cause  which  furnishes 
any  reason  for  a  different  belief  being  entertained  by 
this  defendant  prior  to  the  examination  before  Judge 
Caton  ? 

It  is  true  that  these  men  had  a  warrant  under  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law ;  and  it  is  true,  also,  that  that  warrant 
has,  after  a  day's  discussion,  and  with  an  intimation  of 
some  doubts  as  to  its  validity,  been  sustained  by  this 
court ;  and  it  is  true,  gentlemen,  that  the  honest  be- 
lief that  a  warrant  is  void  furnishes  no  excuse  to  the 
party  who  resists  it,  if  it  turns  out  to  be  valid. 

But  the  position  which  I  take  in  reference  to  the 
warrant  is  this  :  that  the  parties  who  held  that  war- 
rant themselves  doubted  its  validity  ;  that  they,  by  their 
conduct,  created  the  impression  that  it  was  not  relied 
on  and  would  not  be  attempted  to  be  enforced,  and 
that  the  negro  would  be  taken  away  without  any 
process. 

Now,  there  were  but  two  processes  issued  against 
Jim  :  one  was  the  mittimus  in  Union  County,  from 
which  his  discharge  under  the  habeas  corpus  was  cer- 
tain ;  the  other  was  the  Commissioner's  writ.  Now, 
if  the  conduct  of  these  men  was  such  as  fairly  to 
create  the  impression  that  they  regarded  this  latter 
writ  as  invalid  and  worthless,  and  yet  they  came  in 
force,  armed,  and  in  company  with  the  most  notorious 


112       ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

negro-stealers  in  the  State,  the  citizens  might  well  sup- 
pose that  such  a  company  could  have  come  only  for 
the  purpose  of  a  lawless  and  forcible  seizure  and 
abduction  of  this  man.  For  what  other  purpose 
could  these  abandoned  and  infamous  men  have  been 
brought  all  the  way  from  Union  County  to  Ottawa? 

If  Phillipps  had  lawful  process,  he  would  not  require 
the  aid  of  the  most  notorious  violators  of  law. 

In  this  connection  the  apparent  defects  in  the  pro- 
cess itself  are  of  great  importance ;  for  if  there  were 
defects  on  the  face  of  the  warrant  of  such  a  character 
as  would  naturally  cause  any  man  to  regard  it  as  invalid, 
it  would  be  natural  for  men  having  such  a  document  to 
act  as  though  they  did  so  regard  it.  This  warrant  has 
no  seal.  It  is  addressed  to  the  Marshal  of  the 
Southern  District  of  Illinois,  and  expressly  on  its  face 
limited  in  its  operation  to  the  Southern  District  of 
Illinois.  It  only  authorizes  the  arrest  of  Jim  ^^  if  he  is 
found  in  the  Southern  District^ 

Now,  there  are  very  i^w  men  who  would  imagine  for 
a  moment,  until  the  decision  of  this  court  had  in- 
structed them  otherwise,  that  a  writ  issued  in  the 
Southern  District  of  Illinois,  directed  to  the  Marshal  of 
that  district  and  expressly  required,  upon  its  face,  to  be 
served  in  that  district,  could  be  served  in  the  Northern 
District.  The  best  lawyers  in  Ottawa  unhesitatingly 
advised  to  the  contrary ;  all  the  counsel  of  this  defend- 
ant so  advised  at  the  commencement  of  this  defence. 
They  entertained  no  doubt  on  the  subject  at  all,  and 
confidently  supposed  it  would  be  so  ruled  by  this 
court. 

The  fact  that  this  court  has  decided  that  by  some 
peculiar  construction  of  this  Fugitive  Slave  Law  this 
writ  runs  through  the  State,  does  not  affect  the  view 


ARGUMENT   IN  A  SLAVE   CASE.       113 

in  which  I  present  the  matter;  for  if  the  defect  in 
the  writ  was  one  which  would  naturally  be  regarded 
by  the  parties  who  held  it  as  fatal  to  any  use  of  it  in  the 
Northern  District  of  Illinois,  then  they  would  be  likely 
to  act  as  if  they  so  regarded  it. 

In  addition  to  these  defects,  the  officer  deputized 
to  serve  the  writ  had  been  wrongly  designated  in  the 
deputation. 

These  defects  in  the  warrant  were  such  as  to  cause 
the  lawyers  who  examined  it  to  declare  it  incapable  of 
being  lawfully  used  for  the  arrest  of  the  negro.  The 
parties  who  held  it  acted  as  if  they  were  of  the  same 
opinion,  for  they  kept  the  warrant  in  the  background. 
It  was  not  for  some  time  and  without  some  effort  that 
the  committee  of  lawyers  got  a  sight  of  it  in  a  lawyer's 
office  in  Ottawa.  Phillipps,  when  applied  to,  refused  all 
statements  in  regard  to  the  process,  disclaimed  any 
connection  with  the  custody  of  the  negro,  and  referred 
everybody  to  Albright.  Albright  stated  that  he  held 
Jim  on  the  ?niiiimus,  saying  nothing  about  the  warrant ; 
and  it  was  only  by  some  pressing  that  they  got  him 
to  give  them  any  opportunity  to  get  a  sight  of  the 
warrant. 

Albright  never  qualified  as  deputy  under  the  warrant 
until  the  examination  before  Judge  Caton. 

I  say,  then,  without  hesitation,  and  I  appeal  to 
your  intelligent  judgment  to  sustain  me  in  the  assertion, 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  evidence  in  this  cause 
to  bring  home  to  this  defendant  any  knowledge  or 
belief  that  the  negro,  Jim,  was  a  slave  of  Phillipps', 
or  that  any  valid  process  for  his  arrest  could  be  en- 
forced against  the  negro  until  the  examination  before 
Judge  Caton,  and  the  announcement  of  his  decision  at 
the  court-house. 

8 


114      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

And  still  further,  I  insist  that  the  facts  which  I  have 
stated  were  such  as  justly  to  furnish  grounds  for  the 
belief  that  there  was  a  design  on  the  part  of  these  men 
to  carry  this  man  off  forcibly  and  in  violation  of  the  law. 

Under  these  circumstances  did  not  their  duty  as 
citizens  and  men  require  of  them  to  take  every  step 
necessary  to  prevent  the  consummation  of  such  a  law- 
less outrage?  Had  they  not  the  right  —  nay,  was  it 
not  their  duty  —  to  hold  meetings,  to  appoint  commit- 
tees, to  employ  counsel,  to  meet  and  talk  over  this 
matter,  to  lay  their  plans  to  prevent  it,  to  secure  every- 
thing necessary  to  rescue  this  man  from  the  hands  of 
these  kidnappers,  if  they  attempted  to  carry  him  off  by 
force  or  fraud  ? 

This  view  of  the  case  covers  every  particle  of  the 
evidence  touching  the  conduct  of  this  defendant  prior 
to  the  examination  before  Judge  Caton. 

May  not  the  whole  of  this  evidence  just  as  prop- 
erly—  nay,  with  far  greater  propriety  —  be  referable  to 
a  lawful  and  proper  motive  than  to  an  unlawful  one  ? 
What  word  or  act  is  in  evidence  proving  that  the  meet- 
ing which  the  defendant  attended  the  previous  night 
had  any  unlawful  purpose?  But  if  there  were  any 
doubt  on  the  subject,  it  would  be  your  duty  to  throw 
the  doubt  in  favor  of  the  defendant. 

I  boldly  maintain,  then,  and  I  challenge  the  learned 
counsel  for  the  United  States  to  show  the  contrary, 
that  prior  to  the  examination  before  Judge  Caton 
there  is  nothing  in  the  evidence  in  this  case  which 
may  justly  be  held  to  affect  the  defendant  with  any 
criminal  intent,  or  to  prevent  him  from  receiving  a 
verdict  of  acquittal  at  your  hands. 

You  have  him,  then,  at  the  court-house,  on  the  day 
of  the  examination  before  Judge  Caton,  as  perfectly  free 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       115 

from  all  presumption  of  wrong  as  any  witness  who  has 
appeared  upon  the  stand,  even  including  the  learned 
Judge  himself. 

He  attended  the  examination  as  a  spectator,  as  hun- 
dreds of  others  did.  It  was  his  right  and  his  duty  to 
be  there.  He  listened  to  the  opinion  of  the  Judge. 
He  heard  the  decision  which  consigned  the  negro  to 
the  custody  of  the  Marshal.  From  that  moment  I  ad- 
mit he  could  do  no  act  and  say  no  word  which  should 
aid  the  escape  of  this  negro  from  the  custody  of  the 
officer  without  a  violation  of  this  law. 

If  the  evidence  establishes  any  participation  in  this 
rescue  by  him,  after  this  decision,  then  it  will  be  your 
duty  to  convict  him ;  but  if  it  fails  to  prove  any  such 
participation,  or  if  it  leaves  a  reasonable  doubt  of  the 
fact,  it  will  be  your  duty  —  and  I  have  no  doubt,  your 
most  agreeable  duty  —  to  acquit  him. 

II.  Let  us,  then,  consider  the  evidence  touching  the 
conduct  of  the  defendant  subsequent  to  the  decision  of 
Judge  Caton. 

The  whole  evidence  in  this  case  tending  to  show  any 
connection  of  this  defendant  with  the  rescue  after  the 
decision  of  Judge  Caton,  is  given  by  four  witnesses,  — 
Spicer,  Crandall,  Armstrong,  and  Anderson.  No  other 
witness  has  testified  in  relation  to  any  matter  occurring 
subsequent  to  the  examination. 

Two  of  these  witnesses,  Spicer  and  Crandall,  testify 
to  the  same  act  of  the  defendant ;  one  of  them,  Ander- 
son, testifies  to  another  act;  and  two,  Crandall  and 
Armstrong,  testify  to  alleged  admissions  of  the  defend- 
ant. The  only  act  of  the  defendant's  to  which  Spicer 
and  Crandall  testify,  is  his  pointing  his  finger.  They 
say  they  saw  the  defendant  look  at  the  negro  and  point 
to  the  open  window ;  and  Spicer  thinks  that  this  gesture 


Il6      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

was  repeated.  It  does  not  clearly  appear  that  the  ne- 
gro saw  this  gesture,  or  that  it  had  any  reference  to,  or 
connection  with,  the  rescue.  So  far  as  the  facts  of  the 
rescue  are  in  evidence  they  contradict  any  such  idea, 
for  no  rescue  was  made  or  attempted  through  the  win- 
dow. This  is  every  iota  of  the  evidence  relating  to 
this  act,  which  is  one  of  the  acts  relied  on  to  show  the' 
defendant's  participation  in  the  rescue. 

Now,  this  evidence,  giving  it  its  fullest  effect,  neither 
proves  nor  tends  to  prove  that  the  defendant  rescued 
the  slave  or  aided  in  such  rescue. 

It  is  clear  that  it  does  not  prove  that  he  rescued  him, 
for  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  rescue  The  gesture 
was  made  at  a  different  time,  and  before  the  rescue 
was  attempted ;  and  the  rescue  was  made  by  other  par- 
ties and  in  an  entirely  different  manner  from  that  which 
was  indicated  (as  is  claimed)  by  the  gesture.  Nor  does 
the  evidence  show  that  this  act  of  the  defendant's  aided 
the  rescue ;  on  the  contrary,  the  evidence  is  that  Spicer 
reported  at  once  to  the  Marshal  the  gesture  which  he 
had  seen,  and  that  the  result  of  that  gesture  was  that 
the  negro  was  taken  into  closer  custody  by  the  officer. 
So  far  as  the  facts  appear,  then,  this  gesture  of  the 
defendant,  if  it  had  any  effect  at  all,  had  the  effect  to 
prevent  the  rescue  and  not  to  aid  it. 

This  view  is  giving  to  the  gesture  as  proven  the 
meaning  and  intention  assigned  to  it  by  the  prosecu- 
tion. But  what  is  more  uncertain,  more  liable  to  be 
misunderstood,  more  unreliable  as  the  basis  of  a  ver- 
dict which  is  to  disgrace  one  of  your  fellow-men  and 
send  him  to  the  penitentiary,  than  a  gesture,  a  move- 
ment of  the  arm,  a  pointing  of  the  finger  !  Not  a  word 
was  said.  There  is  nothing  in  the  case  to  explain  the 
gesture,  or  give  it  meaning. 


ARGUMENT   IN  A  SLAVE   CASE.       117  X^;^  caT^ 


£^LIFORH\L 


Now,  suppose  this  were  the  only  evidence  in  the 
cause,  and  you  were  asked  to  convict  this  defendant  of 
the  rescue  of  a  slave  because  he  pointed  his  finger  to 
an  open  window  through  which  no  rescue  was  made, 
would  it  not  strike  you  with  some  astonishment  to  havp 
the  Attorney  of  the  United  States  ask  you  to  find  a 
verdict  upon  such  evidence  ? 

Gentlemen,  it  is  all  the  evidence  in  the  cause  which 
touches  the  defendant  (outside  of  the  alleged  admis- 
sions, and  Anderson's  testimony,  which  I  will  consider 
presently).  For  if  I  have  succeeded  in  showing  to 
you  that  every  word  or  act  of  the  defendant  previous 
to  that  examination  is  referable  to  a  just  and  lawful 
motive,  done  in  pursuance  of  his  duty  as  a  man  and  a 
citizen,  then  he  stands  before  you  in  that  court-room  as 
perfectly  free  from  any  presumption  of  guilt  as  any 
other  person  who  was  present. 

I  maintain  that  to  convict  a  man  under  a  law  like 
this,  which  imposes  fine  and  imprisonment  on  the  best 
men  in  the  community,  for  acts  which  but  for  the  law 
would  be  approved  as  humane  and  praiseworthy,  upon 
evidence  like  this,  would  be  treating  a  man  indicted 
under  this  law  more  unfairly  than  you  would  treat  the 
worst  of  felons. 

What !  Convict  a  man  of  a  crime  upon  a  single  ges- 
ture, —  a  movement  of  the  arm,  a  pointing  of  the  fin- 
ger? Why,  of  how  many  different  constructions  is  such 
an  act  susceptible  ? 

It  would  be  easy  to  suggest  many  explanations  of 
this  movement  of  the  arm,  entirely  different  from  that 
which  the  prosecution  give  you  of  it,  and  all  of  which 
might  just  as  well  consist  with  the  facts  proven. 

But  suppose,  on  the  whole,  there  is  some  preponder- 
ance of  the  evidence  in  some  of  your  minds  towards 


Il8      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

the  conclusion  of  an  unlawful  intention  on  the  part  of 
the  defendant  in  making  this  gesture.  This  will  not 
do.  It  is  only  in  civil  cases  that  the  jury  may  decide 
for  the  party  in  whose  favor  the  evidence  prepon- 
derates. In  criminal  trials  the  party  accused  is  always 
entitled  to  the  legal  presumption  in  favor  of  inno- 
cence. Neither  a  mere  preponderance  of  evidence 
nor  any  weight  of  preponderant  evidence  is  sufficient 
for  the  purpose  unless  it  generates  full  belief  of  the 
fact  to  the  exclusion  of  every  reasonable  doubt.  It  is 
not  enough  that  the  evidence  tends  to  show  guilt.  // 
must  be  absolutely  inconsistent  with  afiy  reasonable 
hypothesis  of  innocence. 

But,  gentlemen,  go  a  step  further  and  assume  the 
explanation  of  the  Government  of  this  gesture  to  be 
the  true  one.  Suppose  he  did  point  to  the  slave  and 
to  the  window  as  a  place  of  possible  escape,  and  had 
said  at  the  same  time,  "  My  poor  fellow,  there  is  the 
window,  and  there  is  God  Almighty's  world  of  light 
and  liberty  outside :  we  cannot  help  you ;  we  are 
bound  hand  and  foot  by  this  law;  we  can  give  you 
no  aid,  —  nay,  if  you  attempt  to  escape  through  the 
window  and  the  Marshal  calls  upon  us  to  prevent  you, 
we  shall  have  to  do  so ;  but  if  you  can  achieve  your 
own  liberty  in  spite  of  us,  we  are  not  responsible,"  — 
would  that  have  made  him  guilty  of  the  rescue  or  of 
aiding  in  the  rescue  of  the  slave  ? 

No,  gentlemen,  this  evidence  is  wholly  unsatisfactory 
and  insufficient.  It  does  not  begin  to  make  out  a  case 
against  this  defendant.  If  he  were  on  trial  for  murder 
or  felony,  you  would  revolt  from  convicting  him  upon 
such  testimony ;  and  is  this  defendant  in  this  case  to  be 
convicted  upon  less  evidence  than  would  induce  you  to 
convict  a  man  for  some  more  heinous  crime  ?    Is  this 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       119 

defendant,  with  his  unblemished  character,  won  by- 
twenty  years  of  virtuous  industry  in  the  community  in 
which  he  lives,  to  be  treated  by  you  worse  than  a  felon 
or  a  murderer  ? 

The  next  evidence  to  be  considered  is  that  of  the 
alleged  admissions  of  the  defendant.  These  are  testi- 
fied to  by  two  witnesses,  —  Armstrong  and  Crandall. 

There  is  no  species  of  evidence  which  is  regarded 
by  the  books  as  more  unreliable  and  unsatisfactory 
than  this.  The  most  eminent  judges  and  best  writers 
upon  the  law  of  evidence  have  held  that  it  is  to  be 
received  with  the  greatest  caution,  that  it  is  subject  to 
imperfection  and  mistake.  Such  proof  may  be  easily 
fabricated ;  and  words  are  often  misreported  through 
ignorance,  inattention,  or  malice. 

We  have  a  striking  instance  of  it  in  this  very  case. 
The  witness,  Armstrong,  at  first  stated  in  a  general  way, 
that  he  had  heard  the  defendant  admit  that  he  had  a 
hand  in  the  rescue ;  but  when  the  witness  was  closely 
questioned,  it  turned  out  that  what  he  had  heard  was 
in  a  general  conversation  by  a  number  of  persons  in  a 
store  at  which  the  defendant  was  present,  and  he  was 
unable  to  state  anything  rehable  which  the  defendant 
himself  said,  and  finally  admitted  that  it  was  only  an 
impression  and  inference  formed  by  him  from  the 
whole  conversation,  and  which  he  could  not  swear  was 
founded  upon  anything  which  the  defendant  said,  but 
might  have  arisen  entirely  from  what  was  said  by 
others. 

This  testimony  was  manifestly  incompetent,  and  was 
so  held  by  the  court.  All  which  he  recollected  of  ever 
hearing  the  defendant  say,  and  all  which  is  evidence  in 
this  case,  is  "  that  Jim  had  escaped,  and  he  was  glad 
of  it." 


I20      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

Was  there  anything  wrong  in  these  words  ?  I  have 
no  doubt  they  expressed  the  honest  feelings  of  his 
heart.  They  certainly  express  those  of  mine.  I  can 
say,  too,  with  the  deepest  satisfaction,  "Jim  has  es- 
caped, and  I  am  glad  of  it."  If  that  be  treason,  make 
the  most  of  it.  Yes,  I  am  glad  Jim  has  escaped,  — 
glad  that  another  poor  hunted  victim  of  oppression 
and  wrong  has  escaped  from  the  dark  prison-house  of 
slavery,  and  is  safe  in  a  land  where  the  sound  of  the 
fetter  and  the  lash  is  never  heard. 

Why,  gentlemen,  when  you  listened  to  the  narrative 
of  his  escape,  —  when  you  followed  him  in  his  bound- 
ing, flying  course  through  the  hall,  and  beheld  that 
magnificent  leap  for  freedom  by  which  the  fence  was 
cleared,  and  saw  him  fairly  on  his  way  to  liberty,  —  was 
there  a  man  of  you  in  whose  heart  there  was  not  a  feel- 
ing of  gladness  ?  Did  you  wish  to  have  him  stopped  ? 
If  there  is  such  a  man,  I  do  not  envy  him ;  but  I  have 
too  much  respect  for  you  to  believe  so. 

There  is,  then,  nothing  at  all  in  the  testimony  of 
Armstrong,  so  far  as  it  is  competent,  which  furnishes 
any  ground  for  a  conviction  on  this  indictment. 

The  other  witness,  Crandall,  testifies  to  a  conversa- 
tion had  with  the  defendant  at  the  Revere  House  in 
this  city  since  these  trials  have  been  pending,  in  which 
the  defendant  told  him  that  he  opened  the  window 
himself,  and  would  have  thrown  the  negro  out  of  it  if 
Spicer  had  not  prevented  it. 

This  testimony  furnishes  the  most  striking  example 
of  the  danger  of  this  species  of  testimony.  It  leaves 
the  party  charged  with  a  crime  at  the  mercy  of  the 
witness.  He  may  swear  to  what  he  pleases,  as  it  is 
impossible  to  contradict  him.  This  witness  said  Mr. 
Rathbun  was  present  and  near  enough  to  have  heard 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       12 1 

the  conversation.  We  called  Mr.  Rathbun,  and  he 
swears  he  heard  no  such  conversation  as  the  witness 
relates.  If  a  man  is  to  be  convicted  on  such  evidence 
as  this,  he  is  powerless.  It  was  given  just  at  the  close 
of  the  case.  There  was  no  opportunity  to  impeach 
the  witness,  and  none  of  course  to  contradict  his  state- 
ment. But,  gentlemen,  there  is  one  thing  which  im- 
peaches it  sufficiently  to  make  it  proper  for  you  to 
discard  it,  and  that  is  its  own  inherent  improbability. 

Here  was  this  man  about  to  be  tried  for  an  offence 
punishable  by  fine  and  imprisonment.  This  witness, 
Crandall,  had  just  been  a  witness  against  the  defendant 
in  the  former  trial,  a  witness  who  then  swore  to  conver- 
sations which  other  witnesses  were  called  to  contradict. 
If  this  defendant  is  a  man  of  ordinary  intelligence,  is 
it  to  be  credited  that  he  would  furnish  the  worst  and 
most  malicious  witness  against  him  with  evidence  to 
convict  him,  —  that  he  would  do  this  at  the  very  time 
when  his  trial  was  about  to  come  on,  and  this  very 
man  was  then  in  attendance  as  a  witness  against  him  ? 

There  are  some  things  so  contrary  to  all  human 
experience,  so  intrinsically  improbable,  that  the  mind 
instinctively  rejects  them  as  false.  Gentlemen,  I  pro- 
nounce the  whole  statement  of  this  conversation  by 
this  witness  to  be  a  wanton,  malicious  falsehood.  We 
have  no  means  of  contradicting  it,  except  what  we 
have  already  given  in  the  evidence  of  Rathbun,  but 
by  the  statement  of  the  defendant  himself.  He  is 
here  in  court.  He  is  a  man  sworn  to  be  of  high, 
unblemished  character,  and  I  challenge  the  prosecution 
to  put  him  upon  his  oath  and  ask  him  whether  any 
such  conversation  ever  occurred. 

[Mr.  Stout  here  arose  and  offered  to  be  sworn,  but 
the  offer  was  declined  by  the  District  Attorney.] 


122       ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

The  only  other  evidence  affecting  the  defendant  is 
the  testimony  of  Anderson.  He  swears  that  he  saw 
the  defendant  seize  the  officer  who  had  the  negro  in 
charge  by  the  shoulders,  and  bend  his  head  down 
nearly  to  the  floor,  and  keep  him  in  this  position  for 
some  time,  until  the  negro  had  escaped. 

Now,  if  you  believe  this  evidence,  there  is  an  end  of 
this  case.  No  act  could  more  decisively  connect  this 
defendant  with  the  rescue  than  that  which  he  has 
stated. 

But,  gentlemen,  the  statement  is  at  war  with  all  the 
other  evidence  in  the  case,  and  is  utterly  incredible. 
The  witness  is  either  mistaken  or  he  is  forsworn. 

In  the  first  place,  he  says  the  person  whom  the  de- 
fendant seized  and  held  in  this  manner  was  the  officer 
in  charge  of  the  negro ;  and  this,  in  fact,  is  the  most 
material  point  in  the  evidence.  For  if  it  were  some 
other  man  and  not  the  officer  who  was  held  down,  the 
character  of  the  act  would  depend  entirely  on  who 
the  individual  was ;  for  if  he  were  a  person  trying  to 
rescue  the  slave,  then  in  holding  him  he  would  have 
been  aiding,  and  not  resisting,  the  officer. 

Now,  this  witness  could  not  identify  the  officer  Al- 
bright at  all,  either  in  his  dress  or  his  appearance.  He 
could  not  remember  whether  he  was  pock-marked. 
Albright  is  a  man  of  very  marked  and  decided  personal 
appearance.  No  'man  who  has  once  seen  him  could 
ever  forget  him.  But  even  when  Albright  stood  up,  he 
was  not  certain  whether  that  was  the  man,  nor  could 
he  say  that  Phillipps,  who  looks  entirely  different,  was 
not  the  man;  so  that  it  is  obvious  he  has  no  clear 
recollection  which  enables  him  to  identify  the  indi- 
vidual who  was  thus  assaulted,  which,  as  I  have  said, 
is  the  very  material  point  of  his  evidence. 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       123 

But  further,  we  called  Albright  himself,  who  says  he 
has  no  recollection  of  any  such  event.  Now,  it  is  not 
credible,  it  is  not  within  the  range  of  possibility, 
that  a  man  of  Albright's  stalwart  form  and  vigorous 
frame  could  be  seized  and  bent  over  nearly  to  the  floor 
and  held  in  this  position  without  knowing  it.  In  such 
a  case  the  evidence  of  Albright  is  just  as  conclusive  as 
the  most  positive  testimony.  It  does  not  stand  on  the 
same  basis  as  mere  negative  evidence.  It  was  an  act 
done  to  him  personally,  and  it  could  not  have  been 
done  to  him  without  his  knowledge  and  recollection. 
In  addition  to  this,  it  is  a  fact  which  no  other  witness 
has  sworn  to.  The  matters  which  occurred  in  that 
court-room  have  been  the  subject  of  investigation  here 
for  weeks.  Scores  of  witnesses  have  been  examined 
in  relation  to  them,  and  this  is  the  first  and  only  wit- 
ness who  has  sworn  to  any  such  fact  as  that  stated  by 
this  witness.  If  so  important  a  transaction  as  this 
occurred  in  that  room,  it  could  not  but  have  excited 
the  observation  of  others.  It  was  the  most  decisive  ac- 
tion of  the  whole  rescue,  and  yet  neither  the  officer  who 
was  assaulted  nor  any  one  else  was  cognizant  of  it. 

I  submit,  gentlemen,  that  evidence  contradicted  as 
this  is  by  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  inherently  impossible, 
and  unsupported  by  a  single  other  witness,  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  satisfy  the  minds  of  an  intelligent  jury. 

Surely  I  may  claim  with  the  utmost  confidence  that 
there  is  that  rational  doubt  of  its  correctness  arising 
upon  the  whole  facts  and  circumstances  Of  the  case 
which  warrants  me  in  asking  you  to  discard  it  from 
your  minds. 

And  thus,  gentlemen,  I  have  fully  and  fairly  con- 
sidered every  iota  of  evidence  which  the  prosecution 
have  offered  against  the  defendant ;  and  I  say  to  you  as 


124      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

a  lawyer  and  as  a  man,  that  in  my  judgment  it  is 
wholly  insufficient  to  warrant  a  verdict  against  him. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  a  few  remarks  in  relation  to 
the  right  and  the  duty  of  the  jury  in  prosecutions 
for  offences  of  such  a  character  as  this,  and  I  shall 
conclude. 

It  was  said  by  a  great  British  statesman,  that  "bad 
laws  are  the  worst  sort  of  tyranny ;  "  and  it  is  true. 
They  clothe  what  is  unjust  and  wrong  with  the  sanction 
of  authority.  They  array  the  conscience  of  a  people 
against  itself  by  enlisting  their  conscientious  reverence 
for  the  law  in  behalf  of  what  conscience  itself  con- 
demns. By  such  a  conflict  either  the  national  con- 
science becomes  callous,  and  the  citizen  becomes 
indifferent  to  the  injustice  which  the  law  imposes,  or 
the  conscience  of  the  people  proves  stronger  than 
their  respect  for  law,  and  the  result  is  opposition,  vio- 
lence, tumult,  and  revolution. 

There  can  be,  therefore,  no  greater  wrong,  no 
more  odious  tyranny  inflicted  upon  a  people,  than  to 
compel  them  by  the  force  of  law,  by  the  power  of  pen- 
alties, fines,  and  imprisonment,  to  the  performance  of 
unjust  acts,  opposed  to  their  convictions  of  right. 

Now,  there  are  but  two  resources  which  can  be  made 
effective  to  remove  or  alleviate  the  evil  which  comes 
from  unjust  and  oppressive  legislation.  The  first  lies 
with  the  people  in  their  power  to  effect  a  repeal  or 
change  of  such  legislation  by  a  change  of  their  rulers 
or  representatives.  This  remedy  is  often  one  which  it 
requires  a  long  period  of  time  to  accomplish. 

The  other  lies  in  the  right  of  a  trial  by  jury. 

The  jury  has  been  for  ages  the  great  bulwark  of  the 
citizen  against  the  oppressions  of  power,  the  great 
security  of  his  rights  and  liberties. 


ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE.       125 

To  the  jury  is  given  the  exclusive  right  to  decide 
upon  the  facts.  It  was  once  held  (even  in  the  courts 
of  the  United  States)  that  in  criminal  cases  they  were 
judges  of  the  law  also ;  and  such  is  still  the  doctrine  in 
our  State  courts,  but  in  the  Federal  courts  the  judges 
have  denied  the  right  of  the  jury  to  judge  of  the  law. 
But  the  right  to  be  the  judges,  and  the  sole  and  exclu- 
sive judges,  of  the  facts  is  still  theirs,  and  theirs  with 
no  limit  or  restraint  save  that  which  their  own  con- 
sciences impose. 

In  their  exercise  of  this  duty  they  are  subject  to  no 
control  or  dictation.  They  are  bound  by  no  man's 
opinion,  not  even  that  of  the  judge  upon  the  bench. 
They  take  the  law  from  the  judge ;  and  his  decision  on 
the  law  is,  under  the  rule  adopted  in  this  court,  obliga- 
tory upon  them,  but  his  opinion  upon  the  facts  has  no 
such  authority.  Upon  the  facts  they  are  the  supreme 
and  only  judges. 

There  was  a  time,  and  not  far  back  in  English 
history,  when  juries  were  under  the  most  arbitrary 
and  tyrannical  control  of  judges,  and  when  they  were 
fined  or  imprisoned  for  refusing  to  find  verdicts  in 
conformity  to  the  wishes  of  the  court.  But  these 
were  ages  of  tyranny.  The  noble  courage  and  inde- 
pendence of  juries  in  England  proved  too  strong  a 
barrier  to  be  overcome ;  and  the  right  of  the  jury  to 
decide  upon  all  questions  of  fact  has  become  now  the 
established  doctrine  of  the  law  in  England  as  well  as 
in  this  country. 

Now,  where  the  law  sought  to  be  enforced  is  danger- 
ous to  the  liberties  of  the  citizen,  or  unjust  and  op- 
pressive in  its  operation,  or  where  it  is  of  a  political 
character,  juries  have  it  in  their  power  to  alleviate  its 
evils  by  requiring  the  proof  which  shall  induce  them  to 


126      ARGUMENT   IN   A  SLAVE   CASE. 

convict  for  the  violation  of  such  laws  to  be  of  the  most 
explicit,  positive,  and  satisfactory  description. 

Those  technical  defects  and  nice  objections  which  in 
ordinary  cases  would  be  brushed  aside  as  trifles,  may 
in  such  prosecutions  rightfully  be  made  availing  to  the 
protection  of  the  citizen  against  oppression. 

The  jury  may  rightfully  insist  upon  the  utmost  com- 
pleteness of  the  testimony  in  every  particular.  They 
ought  never  in  such  cases  to  permit  themselves  to  con- 
vict, except  under  a  weight  and  conclusiveness  of  evi- 
dence upon  every  necessary  fact  which  leaves  them  no 
choice  except  to  violate  their  consciences  and  their 
oaths. 

And  especially  is  such  the  duty  of  the  jury  in  cases 
tried  in  this  court,  under  this  law,  where  there  is  no 
appeal,  no  possible  mode  of  reviewing  the  errors  of  the 
judge,  or  correcting  any  mistake  or  injustice  done  to 
the  defendant  on  the  trial. 

The  defendant  in  this  case  is  wholly  without  remedy, 
gentlemen,  however  great  and  numerous  may  be  the 
errors  of  the  law  or  fact  which  are  committed  here. 
Testimony  may  be  admitted  in  violation  of  the  well- 
established  rules  of  evidence.  Instructions  may  be 
given  at  variance  with  what  is  regarded  to  be  law  by 
the  most  able  and  learned  lawyers,  but  there  is  no 
redress. 

Consider  for  a  moment  to  what  consequences  this 
might  lead,  unless  juries  are  careful  of  the  rights  of 
defendants  in  such  cases. 

Suppose  Congress  should  pass  a  law  punishing  any 
citizen  who  should  speak  or  write  against  slavery 
by  fine  and  imprisonment.  Such  a  law  seems  per- 
haps almost  an  absurdity  to  you ;  but  two  centuries 
have  not  elapsed  since  to  speak  or  write  against  the 


ARGUMENT   IN  A  SLAVE   CASE.       127 

government  in  England  was  punishable  by  fine  and 
imprisonment ! 

Such  a  law  would  unhesitatingly  be  pronounced  by 
the  Judge  who  now  sits  in  this  court  as  contrary  to 
that  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
which  secures  to  every  citizen  the  liberty  of  the  press 
and  of  speech. 

But,  gentlemen,  judges  are  mortal,  and  we  may  not 
always  be  favored  with  a  judge  so  eminent  for  learning 
and  exalted  in  character  as  is  he  who  now  presides 
over  this  court. 

Suppose  in  his  place  we  were  to  have  a  LeCompte, 
—  nay,  even  more  than  this,  a  Jeffreys  or  a  Scroggs. 
Such  a  judge  might  find  abundance  of  plausible  pre- 
texts for  sustaining  the  constitutionality  of  such  a  law 
as  I  have  mentioned.  He  might  choose  to  regard  such 
utterances  about  slavery,  either  spoken  or  printed,  as 
incendiary,  and  not  authorized  by  that  proper  and 
licensed  freedom  of  speech  which  was  intended  by  the 
Constitution. 

Suppose  such  a  judge  should  think  fit  to  decide  that 
such  a  law  was  constitutional,  and  a  man  should  be 
brought  to  trial  under  it  for  uttering  the  sentiments  of 
Jefferson,  or  proclaiming  the  doctrines  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  There  would  be  no  remedy 
for  such  an  outrage  save  in  the  intelligent  judgment  and 
independence  of  the  jury. 

In  a  court,  then,  from  whose  decisions  there  is  no 
appeal,  and  for  whose  errors  there  is  no  remedy  or 
redress,  juries  are  especially  called  upon  to  be  careful 
not  to  condemn  unless  the  evidence  proves  the  charge 
beyond  the  shghtest  doubt. 

Looking  at  it  in  this  view,  it  will  be  impossible  for 
you,  as  fair  men,  to  convict  this  defendant  upon  this 


128      ARGUMENT   IN  A  SLAVE   CASE. 

indictment ;  and  I  cannot  think  that  there  is  a  man  on 
this  jury  to  whom  it  would  not  give  the  greatest  satis- 
faction to  be  able  to  bring  in  a  verdict  of  acquittal. 

Surely  it  can  give  no  pleasure  to  any  man  to  be  the 
means  of  imposing  a  disgrace  upon  one  of  his  fellow- 
men,  of  visiting  him  with  fine  and  imprisonment  for  an 
act  which  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  dictated  by  humane 
and  generous  motives,  and  which,  if  committed,  would 
not  lower  the  defendant  in  your  estimation  as  a  good 
man.  And  if  not,  then  it  cannot  be  that  on  evidence 
so  doubtful  and  unsatisfactory  as  has  been  offered  here, 
you  will  refuse  to  acquit  him. 

Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  it  is  said  that  the  execution 
of  this  oppressive  and  odious  law  in  the  North  will  tend 
to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  and  your  love  of 
country  is  sought  to  be  enlisted  in  aid  of  a  conviction 
of  the  defendant  at  the  bar. 

I  deny  the  assertion.  I  say  that  nothing  tends  more 
to  weaken  the  bonds  of  the  Union  at  the  North  than 
such  prosecutions  as  these.  Make  men  feel  by  the 
execution  of  this  Fugitive  Slave  Act  on  the  soil  of  the 
free  States,  how  all  the  great  securities  of  personal 
liberty  are  daily  violated  in  behalf  of  slavery ;  pursue 
with  fine  and  imprisonment  men  of  stainless  character 
and  unsullied  life,  for  giving  a  helping  hand  or  a  kind 
word  to  a  poor  fugitive  on  his  way  to  liberty,  — and  you 
will  fill  the  hearts  of  freemen  at  the  North  with  feelings 
of  bitterness  and  discontent.  Better,  far  better,  were  it 
for  the  Union,  for  the  peace  of  the  country,  for  the 
continuance  of  those  fraternal  feelings  and  relations 
which  should  bind  together  the  citizens  of  these  States, 
if  this  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1850  had  lain,  like  the  law 
of  1793,  dormant  upon  the  statute  book.  The  law  of 
1 793  was  the  only  law  on  this  subject  for  more  than 


ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE.       129 

fifty  years.  It  is  well  known  that  that  law  was  prac- 
tically a  nullity,  and  that  so  few  attempts  to  enforce  it 
were  made  that  it  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the 
same  as  if  there  were  no  law  in  existence ;  and  that  was 
the  period  of  the  utmost  peace  and  harmony  throughout 
the  whole  country. 

Better,  far  better,  if  this  law  of  1850  had  shared  the 
same  fate.  Better  for  the  South  itself;  for  if  slavery  be 
that  fierce  and  terrible  volcano,  ever  ready  to  pour  forth 
fire  and  destruction'  over  the  whole  land,  as  has  been 
so  graphically  pictured  in  the  eloquent  denunciation  of 
the  learned  gentleman  against  abolition  incendiarism, 
then  it  were  surely  wiser  and  safer  to  let  these  brave 
and  fiery  spirits  who  have  the  boldness  to  strike  out  for 
freedom  and  the  skill  and  daring  to  obtain  it  remain 
where  they  are,  and  not  seek  to  regain  them.  Such 
men  would,  if  captured  and  restored,  be  but  as  fire- 
brands to  kindle  the  flame  of  insurrection  and  light  the 
train  which  should  cause  the  volcano  to  explode. 

Better,  too,  for  the  North ;  for  it  would  remove  one 
bitter  and  burning  source  of  anger  and  resentment  in 
the  Northern  heart. 

It  is  said  that  the  laws  of  the  United  States  must  be 
enforced.  It  is  better  for  bad  laws  to  remain  unen- 
forced, to  sleep  in  harmless  oblivion. 

There  are  other  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  as  binding  as  that  on  which  this  law  is 
based,  and  which  are  also  in  themselves  just,  which 
are  every  day  violated ;  and  yet  the  Government  does 
not  take  any  action  in  respect  to  such  violations,  and 
the  dignity  of  the  Government  seems  not  to  be  at  all 
disturbed  by  them. 

The  property  of  citizens  on  the  free  soil  of  one  of 
the  Territories  of  the  United  States  has  been  destroyed 
9 


130      ARGUMENT   IN   A   SLAVE   CASE. 

by  the  most  wanton  violence ;  men  have  been  assaulted 
and  murdered  for  no  crime,  and  in  the  open  light  of 
day ;  one  of  the  great  navigable  rivers  of  the  nation  has 
been  blockaded  by  armed  men ;  free  citizens  are  daily 
being  exposed  to  insult  and  outrage  in  other  States  for 
exercising  the  right  of  free  speech,  and  of  a  free  press, 
guaranteed  to  them  by  the  Constitution.  All  these 
things  are  matters  of  pubUc  history  which  are  known 
to  all. 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  any  prosecutions  of  these  men 
by  the  Government?  Was  the  law  enforced  against 
these  violators  of  the  rights  of  person  and  property  ? 

Why  must  this  law,  which  punishes  what  is  not  a 
crime  except  by  the  statute  which  makes  it  so,  be 
selected,  and  all  the  power  of  the  Government  be  given 
to  its  enforcement,  while  the  guarantees  of  the  Consti- 
tution against  unreasonable  seizures  and  searches  and 
its  securities  for  the  great  rights  of  personal  liberty,  the 
freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  are  trampled  upon 
without  notice  and  without  punishment  ? 

Gentlemen,  I  beUeve  from  my  heart  that  a  verdict  of 
acquittal  in  this  case  will  do  more  than  aught  else  to 
allay  public  excitement,  —  to  quiet  the  angry  feelings 
and  bitter  resentment  which  these  prosecutions  have 
engendered. 

One  victim  has  akeady  been  offered  up  to  this  great 
Moloch  of  Slavery.  The  law  has  been  vindicated.  It 
is  enough.  Let  your  verdict  in  this  case  restore  this 
defendant  to  his  family  in  peace,  and  show  that  while 
you  are  willing  to  do  full  justice  to  the  slaveholder, 
you  have  some  respect  for  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
freemen. 


